IC-NRLF 


SHAKESPEARE  STUDIES 


PAPERS   READ    BEFORE 
THE  LITERARY  CLINIC 


Published  by 

THE  LITERARY  CLINIC 
Buffalo,  1916 


COPYRIGHT 
By 

THE  LITERARY  CLINIC 

1916 


DEDICATED 

TO 
THE  MEMORY  OF 

CHARLES  P.  CLARK 
DUANE  B.  TUTTLE 
FRANK   B.   CARLTON 
GOOD  CLINICIANS  ALL 


CONTENTS 


Foreword 

Shakespeare's  England 
Hamlet 

As  You  Like  It 
King  Lear 
Romeo  and  Juliet 
Othello 

v  The  Tempest 
These  Our  Actors 
A  Tribute 


Char  Its  Elbert  Rhodes 

f  Pauline  H.  Nichols 
(  Bray  ton  L.  Nichols 

F.  Hyatt  Smith 
F.  Hyatt  Smith 
F.  Hyatt  Smith 
F.  Hyatt  Smith 
F.  Hyatt  Smith 
F.  Hyatt  Smith 
F.  Hyatt  Smith 
F.  Hyatt  Smith 


346457 


FOREWORD 

THE  Literary  Clinic,  now  fourteen  years  old,  has 
heretofore  refused  to  heed  the  many  requests  to 
publish  some  of  its  papers.  It  has  not  been  am- 
bitious to  rush  into  print.  It  has  been  content  to  have  its 
productions  typed  and  bound  for  its  own  archives  only. 

The  Shakespeare  Tercentenary,  however,  with  its  na- 
tural and  most  fitting  emphasis  upon  the  life  and  works  of 
the  greatest  writer  in  our  language,  has  made  such  a  de- 
mand upon  us  that  we  have  decided  to  break  our  rule  and 
allow  others  to  share  some  of  the  good  things  which  we 
have  enjoyed.  Hence  this  volume.  It  is  our  modest  con- 
tribution toward  the  word-wide  offering  of  praise,  appre- 
ciation, and  gratitude  for  Shakespeare.  We  give  it  with 
the  hope  that  it  may  mean  to  others  something  like  what 
the  various  papers  have  meant  to  the  Clinic  members.  If 
this  hope  is  realized,  Shakespeare  will  occupy  a  larger 
place  in  the  lives  of  such  as  know  and  appreciate  his 
matchless  work,  his  interpretation  of  man  to  mankind. 

We  count  ourselves  fortunate  in  having,  among  our 
charter  members,  one  who  is  a  ripe  Shakespearean 
scholar, — F.  Hyatt  Smith.  Most  of  his  papers  included 
in  this  volume  have  been  offered  orally,  as  lectures,  at  the 
various  Chautauquas  and  other  assemblies,  at  the  Uni- 
versity of  Buffalo,  where  Mr.  Smith  was  the  first  lecturer 
in  English  Literature,  and  before  many  literary  clubs  and 
other  organizations,  as  well  as  before  The  Literary  Clinic. 
Those  who  have  heard  them,  will  now  be  able  to  read  and 
to  study  them.  Perchance  they  will  be  of  still  greater 
value  in  this  more  lasting  form. 

The  paper  on  Shakespeare's  England,  the  joint  work  of 
Mr.  and  Mrs.  Brayton  L.  Nichols,  has  been  read  before 
the  Highland  Park  Literary  Club,  the  Buffalo  Center  of 


the  Drama  League  and  other  clubs.  When  read  before 
the  Clinic,  it  was  at  once  and  unanimously  decided  not 
only  to  include  it  in  this  volume,  but  to  place  it  first  as  an 
introductory  essay.  It  really  introduces  to  Shakespeare, 
his  times,  and  his  haunts. 

The  brief  tribute  to  Shakespeare  is  of  interest  to  Buf- 
falonians,  because  it  is  the  only  tribute  of  its  kind,  so  far 
as  we  know,  included  among  the  Shakespeare  memorials 
at  Stratford.  For  this,  also,  we  are  indebted  to  Mr 
Smith. 

The  picture  of  Ann  Hathaway's  cottage,  on  the  cover, 
was  taken  by  the  president  of  the  Clinic  during  the  sum- 
mer of  1912. 

CHARLES  ELBERT  RHODES, 

President  of  the  Literary  Clinic, 


Buffalo,  N.  Y., 
April,  1916. 


SHAKESPEARE'S   ENGLAND 


—  BY  — 

PAULINE  H.    NICHOLS 
BRAYTON  L.  NICHOLS 


SHAKESPEARE'S  ENGLAND 

THE  spacious  times  of  great  Elizabeth,"  is  the  way 
Tennyson  designates  the  age  of  Shakespeare,  in 
his  Dream  of  Fair  Women.  Tennyson  was  a 
master  of  the  adjective.  Note  the  fine  fitness  of  that  word 
"spacious,"  with  its  suggestion  of  breadth,  ampleness, 
scope.  No  other  word  could  so  well  describe  the  Eliza- 
bethans, who  dared  everything  and  did  so  much. 

To  understand  Elizabethan  England,  learn  what  the 
Elizabethans  thought  and  believed.  See  what  a  few  years 
did  for  them.  Not  much  more  than  half  a  century  before 
Elizabeth  came  to  the  throne  in  1558,  the  New  World 
was  discovered.  Then  came  the  Reformation.  In  the 
1520*8,  the  first  man  sailed  around  the  globe.  Then  came 
King  Henry's  break  with  the  Church  of  Rome.  In  1549 
telescopes  were  invented,  and  other  worlds  swam  into 
the  ken.  In  1572,  when  Shakespeare  was  a  boy  of  eight, 
the  tidings  of  the  massacre  of  St.  Bartholomew  came. 
In  1580  Sir  Francis  Drake  came  sailing  home,  the  first 
Englishman  to  encompass  the  earth.  All  this  time  Eng- 
lish seamen  were  coursing  the  seas,  founding  English 
commerce,  and  winning  the  supremacy  of  the  ocean  for 
England, — and  year  in  and  year  out  bringing  home 
knowledge  of  strange  countries.  In  1588  England  estab- 
lished her  power  to  think  for  herself,  by  defeating  the 
Spanish  Armada.  Tobacco  came  in,  and  the  potato,  and 
a  myriad  of  other  strange  commodities,  along  with  usages 
and  fashions  from  the  ends  of  the  earth.  Think  of  the 
educational  value  of  these  things !  The  Elizabethan  lived 
in  a  world  without  limits.  He  dared  attempt  anything. 

That  is  why  the  age  is  so  full  of  great  men.  Quaint  old 
Fuller,  writing  half  a  century  afterward,  said :  "Observe 
how  God  set  up  a  generation  of  military  men,  both  by 

ii 


-SHAK'ESPEARE    STUDIES 

sea  and  land,  which  began  and  expired  with  the  reign 
of  Queen  Elizabeth,  like  a  suit  of  clothes  made  for  her 
and  worn  out  with  her;  for  Providence  designing  a 
peaceable  prince  to  succeed  her,  so  ordered  the  matter 
that  they  attended  their  mistress  before  or  after,  within 
some  short  distance,  unto  her  grave."  That  was  the 
greatest  generation  of  Englishmen,  the  generation  of 
Drake  and  Frobisher,  Bacon  and  Hooker,  Shakespeare  and 
Marlowe.  As  Sir  Walter  Raleigh  says,  "If  Elizabeth's 
men  were  stricken  from  the  roll  of  fame,  England  would 
be  robbed  of  half  her  glory." 

-That  is  why  Elizabethan  England  was  so  full  of  tumult 
and  riot  and  imagination.  Fortunes  were  made  in  a 
twinkling.  It  was  as  restless  an  age  as  that  of  the  dis- 
covery of  gold  in  California.  It  was  a  get-rich-quick 
age,  and  it  is  no  wonder  that  Elizabethan  literature  is  so 
full  of  the  cheat  and  fraud  and  impostor,  parasites  who 
always  swarm  in  such  times.  The  activity  and  spirit  of 
innovation,  the  increase  in  comfort  and  luxury,  the  big 
fortunes  and  great  benefactions,  made  it  the  most  Ameri- 
can age  (as  it  might  be  called)  in  English  history.  "What- 
ever your  status,  your  birth,  trade,  profession,  residence, 
religion,  education  or  property,,  in  the  year  1564, (when 
Shakespeare  was  born),"  says  Prof.  W.  A.  Neilson,  "you 
had  a  better  chance  to  change  these  than  any  of  your 
ancestors  had ;  and  there  was  more  chance  than  there  had 
ever  been  that  your  son  would  improve  his  inheritance. 
The  individual  man  had  long  been  boxed  up  in  guild, 
church,  or  the  feudal  system ;  now  the  covers  were  opened, 
and  the  new  opportunity  bred  daring,  initiative  and  ambi- 
tion/' The  sea  rovers  were  typical  Elizabethans,  but  the 
poet,  priest,  merchant,  and  politician  had  scarcely  less 
share  of  adventure.  "The  individual  had  no  such 
opportunity  for  fame  in  England  before  or  since."  The 

12 


SHAKESPEARE'S    ENGLAND 

nineteenth  century  is  the  only  one  which  equals  it  in 
rapidity  of  changes  in  ideas  and  modes  of  life.  But  the 
Victorian  age  was  an  age  of  reaction  and  doubt  of  spirit 
— the  Elizabethan  was  an  age  of  hope. 

Understand  these  things,  and  we  understand  the 
conditions  of  Elizabethan  England.  These  are  the  foun- 
dations. 

****** 

We  get  our  knowledge  of  life  in  those  days  from  a 
variety  of  sources ;  not  so  much  from  dramatists  as  might 
be  thought.  They  did  not  make  exact  pictures  of  the 
life  of  their  time,  any  more  than  Bernard  Shaw  or  George 
Cohan  draw  detailed  pictures  of  the  domestic  machinery 
of  the  present  time.  Charles  Lamb,  who  loved  the 
familiar  and  ancient  and  homely,  expresses  regret  that 
Shakespeare  and  some  of  his  brother  dramatists  hardly 
ever  chose  as  their  theme  the  simple  daily  life  of  the 
England  about  them.  But  if  they  had  done  so,  there 
would  have  been  no  great  English  drama  and  no  Shakes- 
peare. The  Elizabethan  looked  outward,  was  a  citizen 
of  the  wnr!f]T  and  drew  his  plots  largely  from  foreign 
parts.  It  is  from  account-books  and  registers,  the  satir- 
ists like  Stubbes  and  Gosson,  and  the  homely  recorders 
like  the  Rev.  William  Harrison,  that  we  get  the  details 
of  Elizabethan  life. 

When  Shakespeare  was  born,  there  were  four  or  five 
million  persons  in  England.  It  was  an  agricultural  coun- 
try for  the  most  part;  manufacture  of  the  modern  kind 
was  just  beginning.  The  waters  were  pure,  and  the  sky, 
clouded  only  by  wood  smoke,  was  clear, — as  clear  as  an 
English  sky  can  be. 

Stratford-on-Avon  was  a  village  of  about  two  thousand 
souls.  The  streets  were  lined  with  buildings  of  a  pic- 
turesque kind, — mainly  what  are  called  timbered  or  half- 

13 


SHAKESPEARE     STUDIES 

timbered  houses.  These  were  mostly  of  wood,  just  as 
American  villages  today  are  chiefly  built  of  wood.  But 
instead  of  being  clapboarded,  the  Elizabethan  houses  had 
timbers,  or  studs,  running  up  and  down,  a  few  inches 
apart,  and  some  horizontally,  with  the  spaces  between 
filled  with  plaster  or,  in  poor  houses,  clay.  Perhaps  the 
whole  was  plastered  over  the  outside,  and  maybe  the 
inside  was  finished  with  mortar  and  maybe  not.  But  a 
change  in  architecture  was  going  on  in  England  at  that 
very  moment.  It  was  no  longer  the  fashion  to  build 
castles,  with  narrow  slits  of  windows, — these  were  not 
needed,  for  the  fighting  days  were  over.  The  finer  houses 
were  now  mere  houses  built  of  brick  and  stone,  with 
wider  and  more  numerous  windows,  more  light  and  more 
comfort. 

The  general  effect  of  an  Elizabethan  street  was  more 
picturesque  than  most  streets  now.  The  people  of  that 
day  built  more  for  the  pleasure  of  the  wayfarer  and 
the  passer-by,  by  decorating  their  housefronts,  and  less 
for  comfort  within,  than  we  do  now.  The  Elizabethan 
manors,  set  in  great  parks,  were  a  different  thing,  how- 
ever. They  were  of  brick,  with  many  windows.  Many 
of  them  had  wings  at  right  angles  to  the  main  part  of 
the  house,  and  so  had  the  shape  of  the  letter  "E" — a 
delicate .  compliment  to  Queen  Elizabeth. 

Window  glass  was  just  coming  into  common  use  in 
Shakespeare's  day.  Before  that,  the  windows  were  mere 
open  spaces,  or  were  closed  only  with  horn  or,  much 
more  generally,  with  lattices  of  wicker  or  strips  of  oak 
set  checkerwise.  Where  wood  was  plentiful  enough  for 
strong  rafters,  the  roof  was  covered  with  tiles,  or  with 
slate  if  quarries  were  handy.  Otherwise  the  roof  was 
thatched  with  reeds,  sedge,  or  straw.  Even  in  the  houses 
where  window  glass  was  used,  good  care  was  taken  of  it. 

14 


SHAKESPEARE'S    ENGLAND 

Glass  was  expensive.  When  the  Northumberland  family 
left  Alnwick  Castle  for  London,  the  windows  were  taken 
out  and  laid  up  in  safety. 

The  house  known  as  Shakespeare's  birthplace  certainly 
belonged  to  Shakespeare's  father,  and  Will  Shakespeare 
was  born  there  if  he  wasn't  born  somewhere  else.  It 
has  been  altered  and  'restored  so  much  that  but  little  of 
the  original  material  remains  in  it,  probably,  and  the 
arrangement  has  been  changed  more  than  once. 

But  let  us  see  what  the  old  house  can  tell  us.  As  you 
enter  it,  you  find  yourself  in  a  main  room  with  a  stone 
floor  and  an  immense  chimney-piece ;  and  behind  it  is  a 
kitchen  with  another  big  chimney.  Let  us  hope  that  little 
Will  Shakespeare  had  the  pleasure  of  snugging  up  to  a 
blaze  in  these  fireplaces.  But  the  chimney  corner,  which 
suggests  so  much  of  domestic  comfort  to  us,  dates  only 
from  this  very  reign.  Chimneys  were  rare  in  ordinary 
houses  when  Elizabeth  came  to  the  throne;  before  her, 
smoke  got  out  of  the  house  through  the  door  or  window 
or  a  hole  in  the  roof. 

The  stone  floor  of  this  main  room  in  the  Shakespeare 
house  had  a  dressing  of  sand  in  summer  and  a  layer  of 
rushes  in  winter, — no  other  carpet  probably.  The  furni- 
ture was  strong  rather  than  beautiful.  There  was  no 
table  cloth  except  on  state  occasions,  and  the  platters, 
dishes  and  bowls  were  probably  of  wood,  easily  scoured 
with  sand.  The  spoons  may  have  been  of  wood,  but 
tin  spoons  were  beginning  to  come  in,  just  as  pewter 
platters  were  beginning  to  be  the  style.  There  were  no 
forks.  The  meat  and  vegetables  got  to  the  mouth  on 
the  tip  of  the  knife  which  every  member  of  the  house- 
hold possessed;  the  left  hand  did  general  work  in  the 
platter  when  necessary.  If  Shakespeare  ever  used  a  fork, 
it  was  when  he  was  well  along  in  life.  Forks  did  not 

15 


SHAKESPEARE     STUDIES 

come  in  until  the  beginning  of  the  seventeenth  century; 
and  then  from  Italy.  As  was  natural,  the  new-fangled 
contrivance  was  at  first  looked  on  as  effeminate, — perhaps 
worse.  Some  preachers  denounced  forks,  it  being  obvi- 
ously an  insult  to  Providence  to  keep  fingers  and  meat 
from  getting  acquainted. 

Up  stairs  is  the  little  room  where  Shakespeare  was 
born  (according  to  tradition).  In  the  little  lattice  win- 
dows are  still  some  greenish  lights  of  ancient  glass.  Will 
Shakespeare  himself  looked  through  glass  as  greenish,  if 
not  greener. 

Everything  was  produced  in  this  house  that  could  be 
made  at  home.  The  whir  of  the  spinning  wheel  was  no 
novelty  to  Shakespeare's  ears.  Watching  the  brewing 
was  probably  a  regular  occupation  with  him.  The  Rev. 
Mr.  Harrison  tells  us  how  the  beer  was  made  for  the 
small  household  of  a  clergyman  "with  forty  pounds  a 
year."  Mistress  Harrison  ground  eight  bushels  of  malt 
in  her  quern,  added  half  a  bushel  of  wheat  meal  and 
half  a  bushel  of  oatmeal,  and  poured  upon  it  three  suc- 
cessive hogsheads  of  boiling  water,  of  eighty  gallons  each ; 
and  added  at  the  proper  time  hops  and  arras  and  bay- 
berries  and  other  commodities,  and  at  the  end  she  had 
two  hundred  or  more  gallons  of  good  beer.  This  for  a 
year's  supply?  No;  "it  is  once  a  month  practiced  by  my 
wife,"  says  the  good  Mr.  Harrison. 

Stratford  had  a  weekly  market  and  a  semi-annual  fair, 
like  most  villages.  Shakespeare  saw  a  motley  life  at 
these  fairs  and  markets.  The  villages  and  the  highways 
of  rural  England  were  full  of  ballad  singers,  acrobats, 
dancing  dogs,  trained  bears,  wandering  players,  to  whom 
fair-time  was  harvest  time.  The  city  fathers  regulated 
the  affairs  of  the  town  spasmodically,  like  most  city 
fathers,  but  were  gradually  growing  more  strict  as  Puritan 

16 


SHAKESPEARE'S     ENGLAND 

influences  became  stronger.  They  were  specially  severe 
on  rebellious  servants,  idle  apprentices,  shrewish  women, 
the  pigs  that  ran  in  the  streets,  and, — after  1605, — upon 
persons  guilty  of  profanity.  Regular  church  attendance 
and  fixed  hours  of  work  were  required,  and  the  council 
was  kept  busy  regulating  the  alehouses,  of  which  there 
were  some  thirty.  There  were  public  bowling  alleys  and 
archery  butts,  and  the  council  was  strict  as  to  the  hours 
of  using  them.  Hunting,  hawking,  cockfighting,  bull- 
baiting,  dancing  and  other  sports  delighted  the  villager  and 
the  small  boy. 

Back  of  the  Shakespeare  house  were  probably  Mr. 
Shakespeare's  tan-pits  and  pigsty.  The  condition  of  the 
yard  and  highway,  in  front,  may  be  guessed  from  the 
fact  that  in  1552  John  Shakespeare  was  fined  twelve  pence 
for  having  too  big  a  muckhill  before  his  door,  and  in 
1558  four  pence  for  not  cleaning  out  his  gutter.  Other 
Stratford  citizens  fell  victims  to  the  spasmodic  cleaning-up 
fever  of  the  council  at  the  same  time.  Fire  and  pestilence 
were  the  two  great  enemies  of  English  villages  at  that 
time,  as  well  as  of  English  cities ;  and  Stratford  suffered 
more  than  once.  The  plague  always  left  the  streets 
cleaner,  because  it  led  to  a  cleaning  up. 

Near  the  market  cross  in  Stratford  stood  a  pump,  and 
housewives  were  often  to  be  seen  "washing  of  clothes" 
there  and  hanging  them  on  the  cross  to  dry ;  the  butchers 
might  occasionally  be  detected  hanging  meat  there.  But 
the  corporation  did  not  approve  of  such  practices,  and 
finally  forbade  them.  Also  near  the  cross  were  the  stocks, 
pillory  and  whipping  post,  for  malefactors. 

Stratford  was  well  shaded  with  elms.  The  gardens  of 
the  citizens  were  separated  by  mud  walls,  not  very  durable, 
which  sometimes  provoked  quarrels.  Fruit  trees  were 
generally  set  about  the  house;  and  flowers  and  a  few 
medicinal  and  cooking  plants  were  grown. 

17 


SHAKESPEARE    STUDIES 

Inventories  of  the  furniture  of  houses  in  Shakespeare's 
day,  made  for  executors'  sales,  show  much  the  same 
utensils  that  our  forefathers  brought  into  this  region 
when  it  was  young, — andirons,  candlesticks,  etc.  The 
frequency  of  brewing  utensils,  and  of  looms  for  weaving 
wool,  tells  its  own  story.  One  interesting  item  is  "painted 
cloths,"  or  arras,  made  to  nail  up  in  place  of  wallpaper; 
these  cloths  always  had  "wise  sayings  painted  on  them." 
And  the  abundance  of  napkins,  of  flax,  hemp  and  diaper, 
is  significant.  There  were  no  forks  then. 

There  was  no  garbage  service  in  Stratford.  The 
inhabitants  made  up  for  this  lack  by  laying  the  refuse 
in  the  streets  and  lanes;  but  after  1563  the  householder 
might  be  fined  3s.4d.  for  this.  There  were,  however, 
six  places  in  the  town  set  apart  legally  for  amassing  the 
refuse.  These  muckhills  were  to  be  removed  twice  a 
year,  before  Pentecost  and  about  Michaelmas,  in  defer- 
ence to  sanitary  science.  These  muckhills  were  right  in 
town,  so  placed  as  to  be  handy  to  citizens. 

Garrick  described  Stratford  in  1769  as  "the  most  dirty, 
unsemmly,  ill-pav'd  wretched  looking  town  in  all  Britain." 
This  must  have  been  exaggeration.  Yet  Stratford  could 
not  have  been  neat.  The  town  delegated  the  cleaning  of 
its  streets  to  its  citizens,  and  they  attended  to  it  when 
they  were  speeded  up, — with  fines.  But  the  town  itself 
looked  after  the  cleaning  of  the  bridge,  the  market  place 
and  the  space  before  the  chapel  door  and  Guild  Hall. 
The  "White  Wings"  of  Stratford  in  Will  Shakespeare's 
day  consisted  of  the  Widow  Baker.  She  got  6s.8d.  a 
year  from  the  corporation,  and  a  shovel,  a  broomstick 
and  twigs  were  thrown  in  at  municipal  expense.  She 
attended  to  the  market  place.  A  man  named  Raven  swept 
the  bridge,  assisted  occasionally  by  Widow  Baker.  When 
the  roof  of  the  chapel  was  fixed  in  1604,  the  spirit  of 

18 


.    SHAKESPEARE'S     ENGLAND 

improvement  carried  the  corporation  to  greater  lengths, 
and  Anthony  Rees,  Mistress  Rees  and  Goodwife  Wilson 
were  hired  to  sweep  away  the  cobwebs  and  wash  the  seats. 
Otherwise  the  chapel  was  rarely  contaminated  with  water. 

And  water  was  regarded  as  injudicious  in  many  cases 
of  sickness.  Perhaps  it  was  looked  on  then,  even  gen- 
erally, with  more  suspicion  than  it  is  nowadays.  Good 
soap  was  hard  to  get,  moreover,  in  Shakespeare's  day. 
But  the  Elizabethans  had  a  substitute  for  soap :  they  used 
perfumery. 

One  of  the  books  that  Shakespeare  must  often  have 
seen  gives  an  idea  of  the  medicine  practised  at  that  day. 
It  was  Dr.  Andrew  Borde's  Breviary  of  Health  (1575). 
Dr.  Borde  was  a  popular  physician  of  Henry  VIII's  day. 
He  was  something  of  a  joker,  and  called  himself  jocularly 
Andreas  Perforatus  (perforated  Andrew  or  Andrew 
bored).  Medical  treatment,  as  he  pictures  it,  is  a  mixture 
of  theory,  superstition  and  white  magic.  It  is  a  sort  of 
popular  science,  not  far  removed  from  the  advice  given 
in  almanacs  today.  The  medicines  mentioned  by  Dr. 
Borde  include  such  commodities  as  oil  of  scorpion  and 
grease  of  fox.  "Bloodshot  eyes,"  "privation  of  wit," 
"sneezing  out  of  measure"  are  some  of  the  things  for 
which  the  doctor  prescribes.  His  science  is  lightened 
occasionally  with  levity.  For  a  scolding  wife  the  doctor 
says  the  only  cure  is  "God  and  great  sickness."  For  itch- 
ing he  recommends  "long  nails  and  scratching."  Con- 
cerning diseases  of  the  tongue  he  remarks:  "It  hath 
many  other  impediments,  but  none  worse  than  lying  and 
slander." 

For  scolding  wives  the  corporation  of  Stratford  did  not 
trust  to  Dr.  Borde's  specific.  The  village  had  among  its 
possessions  a  substantial  "ducking  stool,"  of  the  kind  then 
general  throughout  England.  It  had  iron  staples,  lock 

19 


SHAKESPEARE    STUDIES 

and  hinges.  The  shrew  was  attached  to  it,  and  by  means 
of  ropes,  planks  and  wheels  was  ducked  two  or  three 
times  in  the  river  Avon.  The  prescription  ran :  "Repeat 
when  needed." 

Not  far  away  from  the  Shakespeare  home  was  an  in- 
institution  that  Will  Shakespeare  must  have  known  well, 
— the  Stratford  Free  Grammar  School,  so  called  because 
Latin  grammar  was  taught  there.  There  were  a  great 
many  such  schools  in  England  then ;  Harrison  says  "there 
is  hardly  a  corporate  village  but  has  one."  State  educa- 
tion did  not  dawn  in  England  until  1832,  but  guilds  and 
individuals  established  these  free  schools  in  early  centur- 
ies. Of  course,  only  villagers  profited  by  them,  for  the 
most  part.  Education  was  then  practically  a  privilege  of 
the  elite — the  elite  either  by  birth  or  intellect.  And  girls — 
girls  did  not  need  an  education,  except  in  spinning,  bak- 
ing and  brewing.  Highborn  girls  might  get,  from  tutors, 
as  advanced  an  education  as  any  boy.  Ascham  tells  us  the 
pretty  story  of  finding  little  Lady  Jane  Grey  in  her  cham- 
ber "reading  Phaedon  Platonis  in  Greeke,  and  that  with 
as  moch  delite  as  some  jentlemen  would  read  a  merie 
tale  in  Boccace."  Queen  Elizabeth  could  talk  Latin  and 
French  and  Italian,  and  even  sidestepped  gracefully  in 
Greek  when  an  Oxford  orator  addressed  her  in  that  lan- 
guage. But  for  the  ordinary  girl,  it  was  fine  time  for 
studying  Domestic  Science. 

We  know  that  Shakespeare  must  have  gone  to  this 
Stratford  grammar  school,  because  we  find  evidence  of  it 
in  his  plays.  At  such  schools  they  began  with  Lily's 
grammar,  reached  Aesop's  fables  in  the  third  year  and 
Ovid  in  the  fourth.  Now,  we  find  in  the  plays  quotations 
from  or  references  to  the  grammar  and  the  fables,  and, 
specially,  to  Ovid.  Shakespeare  \vas  not  a  scholar ;  there 
is  evidence  that  when  a  translation  was  to  be  had  he 

20 


SHAKESPEARE'S     ENGLAND 

went  to  the  translation  always,  rather  than  to  the  original 
Latin.  But  the  way  in  which,  in  his  immense  vocabulary, 
he  coins  words  from  the  Latin,  or  shows  other  knowledge 
of  the  derivation  of  words,  proves  that  he  did  know  some- 
thing about  Latin.  And  we  can  guess  how  Will  Shakes- 
peare looked,  when  he  went  to  grammar  school  mornings, 
and  what  was  his  speed.  Chance  remarks  of  the  melan- 
choly Jaques  in  As  You  Like  It,  and  of  Romeo,  indicate 
that  he  "crept  like  a  snail/' 

Had  Shakespeare's  family  been  prosperous,  he  might 
have  gone  on  to  the  university  from  school.  The  gram- 
mar schools  were  the  ladder  to  the  universities,  of  which 
there  were  then  three  in  England.  But  Shakespeare  had 
to  go  to  work. 

Having  looked  at  village  life  as  Shakespeare,  saw  it, 
let  us  see  what  he  learned  in  the  pleasant  Warwickshire 
countryside  about  Stratford.  North  of  the  Avon  was  the 
Forest  of  Arden — then  largely  cut  away  like  most  English 
forests — and  south  of  it  was  a  plateau  full  of  the  homes 
of  the  gentry.  Legends  of  outlaws  and  English  cham- 
pions filled  the  Warwickshire  countryside;  it  was  one  of 
the  homes  of  ballad  poetry,  and  rustic  pageants  and  fes- 
tivals kept  the  spirit  of  poetry  alive.  Many  of  the  fine 
roads  of  today  were  entirely  lacking;  others  were  ill- 
defined,  winding  ways  through  dense  thickets  and  bogs. 

One  striking  feature  of  the  present-day  landscape  was 
lacking.  Shapespeare  saw  no  carriages  when  he  went 
rambling!  All  travel  on  the  poor  roads  was  on  foot  or 
horseback.  Goods  were  carried  on  packhorses.  When 
Elizabeth  rode  into  London  from  Greenwich,  she  rode  on 
a  pillion  behind  her  Lord  Chancellor.  Afterward  came 
a  great  improvement,  in  the  form  of  a  rough  cart  with- 
out springs,  the  box  sitting  on  the  solid  axle.  Queen  Bess 
rode  to  her  fifth  Parliament  in  such  a  contrivance. 

21 


SHAKESPEARE    STUDIES 

Coaches  came  in  toward  the  end  of  the  century.  Eliza- 
beth had  lumbering  gilt  coaches;  but  when  she  went 
about  the  country  in  her  stately  progresses,  she  fairly 
crept  along  the  muddy  roads,  and  her  coach  was  followed 
by  several  hundred  carts  containing  the  luggage  of  her 
train.  Great  was  the  interest  in  good-roads  improve- 
ments just  then,  in  the  districts  she  was  to  visit !  Beside 
the  first  coaches  used  to  run,  afoot,  the  footmen,  carrying 
staves  wherewith  to  pry  the  wheels  out  of  the  mudholes. 

But  even  before  the  coaches,  we  hear  of  the  delightful 
inns  which  won  the  praise  of  all  foreigners.  Where  travel 
was  so  slow,  the  inns  had  to  be  numerous. 

In  the  Warwick  country  Shakespeare  saw  picturesque 
two-roomed  cottages,  of  wattle  or  stone  with  thatched 
roofs.  Now  and  then  he  might  see  a  shepherd,  in  russet 
coat  with  red  sleeves,  and  a  bag  of  salt  dangling  at  his 
side.  He  would  hear  singing  everywhere;  would  listen 
to  grewsome  stories  of  witches,  and  might  hear  even  of 
the  burning  of  a  witch  somewhere  in  England.  Most 
persons  then  believed  in  witches,  and  it  was  a  risky  time 
for  homely  old  women.  The  countryside  was  full  of 
superstition.  We  read  in  the  chronicles  of  the  time  of 
all  sorts  of  strange  things.  For  instance,  of  how  at  Kin- 
naston  in  1575,  "on  the  I7th  of  February  at  6  o'clock  in 
the  evening,  the  earth  began  to  open  and  a  Hill  with 
a  Rock  under  it  (making  at  first  a  great  bellowing  noise 
which  was  heard  a  great  way  off),  lifted  itself  up  to  a 
great  height  and  began  to  travel,  bearing  along  with  it 
the  trees  that  grew  upon  it,  the  sheepfolds  and  flocks 
of  sheep;  having  walked  in  this  way  from  Saturday  in 
the  evening  until  Monday  noon,  it  then  stood  still."  The 
Elizabethan  rustic  believed  these  tales,  as  did  most  per- 
sons not  rustics.  It  was  a  credulous  age,  stimulating  to 
the  imagination ! 

22 


SHAKESPEARE'S    ENGLAND 

There  was  surprisingly  good  living  even  in  the  humble 
homes  along  the  way.  The  Englishman  always  aston- 
ished the  foreigner  by  the  amount  of  what  he  ate  and 
drank.  But  wages  were  not  high.  The  magistrates  were 
empowered  to  fix,  in  quarter  sessions,  the  wages  of 
artisans  and  farm  laborers.  In  the  sixty  years  following 
1583,  the  average  weekly  wage  of  the  carpenter  was 
6s.  2*^d.,  while  the  mason  and  the  bricklayer  got  a  little 
more,  and  the  ordinary  farm  laborer  got  only  35.  5%d. 
And  wages  did  not  go  up  and  down  as  fast  as  the  prices 
of  food,  and  the  farm  laborer  had  to  stick  to  his  job, 
instead  of  hunting  a  new  one,  until  the  magistrates  gave 
leave.  This  power  given  to  the  magistrates  in  Tudor 
days  explains  why  the  squire  and  the  rector  occupy  the 
awful  station  that  they  do  in  the  English  country  novel 
of  even  today. 

A  picture  of  Henry  Hastings,  a  country  .squire  of  Dor- 
setshire  a  little  after  this  time,  will  show  what  was  the 
life  in  the  squires'  halls  that  Shakespeare  passed.  "His 
(Hastings's)  clothes  were  always  of  green  cloth.  His 
house  was  in  the  midst  of  a  large  park,  well  stocked 
deer,  rabbits  and  fishponds.  He  had  a  long  narrow 
bowling  green  in  it;  here,  too,  he  had  a  banqueting  room 
built,  like  a  stand,  in  a  large  tree.  He  kept  all  sorts  of 
hounds,  that  ran  buck,  hare,  otter  and  badger;  and  had 
hawks  of  all  kinds.  His  great  hall  was  commonly 
strewed  with  marrow  bones,  and  full  of  hawk  perches, 
hounds,  spaniels  and  terriers.  The  upper  end  of  it  was 
hung  with  foxskins  of  this  and  last  year's  killing.  Here 
and  there  a  polecat  was  intermixed.  The  parlor  was  a 
large  room,  completely  furnished  in  the  same  style.  On 
a  broad  hearth,  paved  with  brick,  lay  some  of  the 
choicest  terriers,  hounds  and  spaniels.  One  or  two  of 
the  great  chairs  had  litters  of  cats  in  them,  which  were 

23 


SHAKESPEARE    STUDIES 

not  to  be  disturbed.  Of  these,  three  or  four  always 
attended  him  at  dinner;  and  a  little  white  wand  lay  by 
his  trencher,  to  defend  it  if  they  were  too  troublesome. 
In  the  windows,  which  were  very  large,  lay  his  arrows, 
crossbows  and  other  accoutrements.  At  the  upper  end 
of  the  room  stood  a  small  table  with  a  double  desk ;  one 
side  of  which  held  a  church  Bible,  the  other  the  Book  of 
Martyrs  (published  1573).  On  different  tables  about  the 
room  lay  hawks'  hoods,  bells,  old  hats  with  their  crowns 
thrust  in  and  full  of  pheasants'  eggs;  dice,  cards  and 
store  of  tobacco  pipes.  At  one  end  was  a  door  into  a 
chapel,  which  had  been  long  disused  for  devotion;  but 
in  the  pulpit,  as  the  safest  place,  was  always  to  be  found 
a  cold  chine  of  beef,  a  vension  pasty,  a  gammon  of 
bacon,  or  a  great  apple  pye  with  thick  crust  well  baked. 
His  table  cost  him  not  much,  though  it  was  good  to  eat 
at.  His  sports  supplied  all  but  beef  and  mutton,  except 
on  Fridays,  when  he  had  the  best  of  fish.  He  drank  a 
glass  or  two  of  wine  at  meals;  put  syrup  of  gillyflowers 
into  his  sack ;  and  always  had  a  glass  of  small  beer  stand- 
ing by  him,  which  he  often  stirred  with  rosemary." 
(This  is  from  Hutchins's  History  of  Dorsetshire.} 

The  country  clergyman,  like  the  lower  orders  of  clergy 
generally,  was  distinguished  by  the  title  of  Sir,  which  was 
purely  honorary.  The  condition  of  the  minor  clergy  was 
never  lower  in  England,  and  the  house  chaplains  were 
little  better  than  servants.  The  standing  of  the  clergy 
may  be  judged  to  some  degree  (perhaps)  by  this  entry 
in  the  books  of  the  Stationers'  Company  in  London  in 
1560: 

Item,  payd  to  the  preacher 6s.  2d. 

Item,  payd  to  the  minstrell 125. 

Item,  payd  to  the  coke 155. 

24 


SHAKESPEARE'S     ENGLAND 

One  feature  of  the  rural  English  life  must  not  be 
overlooked.  It  tended  to  Shakespeare's  education.  The 
kingdom  was  full  of  players.  The  old  miracle  plays  were 
acted  largely  by  amateurs,  in  the  streets  and.  squares  of 
towns.  The  moralities  and  interludes  were  performed  by 
roving  companies,  at  first  in  open  spaces,  afterward  in 
the  banqueting  rooms  of  the  gentry.  And  so  the  way 
was  led  to  the  professional  companies,  attached  to  the 
households  of  lords  at  first  and  then  doing  business  for 
themselves. 

In  1568,  when  Will  Shakespeare  was  four  years  old, 
the  players  came  to  Stratford.  Probably  they  came,  like 
most  traveling  companies,  on  foot,  with  their  luggage 
carried  on  one  or  two  packhorses  or  mules.  There  were 
no  women  in  the  company,  of  course.  Of  the  two  com- 
panies of  these  players  who  came,  one  received  9  shillings 
from  the  town,  the  other  12  pence;  for  they  came  under 
the  patronage  of  the  village.  We  do  not  know,  that 
Shakespeare  saw  these  plays,  but  probably  he  did;  boys 
all  over  England  were  enjoying  such  sights  then.  We 
can  imagine  the  long  low  Guild  Hall,  lighted  by  guttering 
.candles  and  smoky  torches;  the  stage,  only  a  few  inches 
above  the  floor,  -aad  without  scenery  and  with  few  prop- 
erties ; — and  wide-eyed  little  William  looking  on. 

Play-acting  had  long  been  common  through  rural  Eng- 
land. Miracle  plays  were  given  at  Coventry,  not  far 
from  Stratford,  up  to  1580,  and  perhaps  Shakespeare 
saw  Quince  and  Bottom  there.  And  very  likely  young 
Shakespeare,  when  he  was  eleven  years  old,  saw  the  most 
famous  of  all  the  royal  entertainments  of  Elizabeth's  day, 
that,  which  the  Earl  of  Leicester  gave  in  honor  of  Eliza- 
beth at  Kenilworth  castle  (or  Killingworth,  as  it  was 
often  called),  eleven  or  twelve  miles  from  Stratford. 

25 


SHAKESPEARE    STUDIES 

The  "princely  pleasures  of  Kenilworth"  were  the  high- 
water  mark  of  the  shows  of  sixteenth-century  England. 
They  lasted  eighteen  days  and  cost  the  earl  a  thousand 
pounds  a  day,  say  the  contemporary  chroniclers.  There 
were  sports  of  all  kinds :  fireworks,  bear-baiting,  pageants 
and  plays,  morrice  dances,  tilting,  hunting,  a  rural  wed- 
ding, everything  that  could  please  and  entertain  the 
queen,  from  the  allegorical  welcome  when  she  came  to 
the  farewell  show  at  the  end.  There  were  floating  islands 
and  other  contrivances  on  the  lake  beside  the  castle. 
People  of  every  kind  flocked  to  Kenilworth  for  the 
spectacle.  Robert  Laneham,  a  dandy  who  held  a  minor 
office  in  the  queen's  train,  wrote  a  letter  to  a  friend  that 
contains  a  detailed  account,  day  by  day,  of  the  entertain- 
ment offered  to  Elizabeth.  One  thing  that  Laneham 
describes  is  this:  .  .  .  "And  the  Lady,  with  her  two 
nymphs,  floating  upon  her  movable  island  (Triton  on  his 
mermaid  skimming  by),  approached  toward  Her  High- 
ness (the  Queen,  who  was  upon  a  bridge),  chiefly  to 
present  Her  Majesty  with  this  gift, — which  was,  Arion, 
that  excellent  and  famous  musician,  in  tire  and  appoint- 
ment strange,  riding  aloft  upon  his  old  friend  the  dolphin, 
that  from  head  to  tail  was  four  and  twenty  feet  long, 
and  swam  hard  by  these  islands." 

That  is  a  fair  specimen  of  Elizabethan  prose.  Fifteen 
or  twenty  years  afterward  William  Shakespeare  gave  a 
fine  illustration  of  Elizabethan  poetry,  when  he  made 
Oberon  say  in  A  Midsummer  Nigth's  Dream : 

"Thou  remember 'st 
Since  once  I  sat  upon  a  promontory 
And  heard  a  mermaid  on  a  dolphin's  back 
Uttering  such  dulcet  and  harmonious  breath 
That  the  rude  sea  grew  civil  at  her  song, 
And  certain  stars  shot  madly  from  their  spheres, 
To  hear  the  sea-maid's  music." 

26 


SHAKESPEARE'S     ENGLAND 

Does  it  not  seem  as  if  Shakespeare  was  present  at  Ken- 
ilworth  in  1575? 

In  that  same  passage  of  A  Midsummer  Night's 
Dream,  Shakespeare  makes  Oberon  speak  of  a  "fair 
vestal  thron-ed  by  the  west,"  at  whom  Cupid  shot  a 
dart  in  vain : 

"And  the  imperial  votaress  passed  on, 
In  maiden  meditation,  fancy-free." 

The  fair  vestal  was,  of  course,  Queen  Elizabeth.  It  was 
the  fashion  of  the  poets  of  the  day  to  exalt  and  to  wor- 
ship the  maiden  queen,  and  it  was  the  fashion  of  the 
common  people,  too,  to  look  up  to  her  and  almost  to 
ru  &&p  her.  There  was  an  Elizabethan  legend,  just  as  in 
later  days  there  was  a  Napoleonic  legend. 

It  is  somewhat  shocking  to  discover  the  difference 
between  the  Elizabeth  of  fancy  and  the  Elizabeth  of  fact. 
Really,  Queen  Elizabeth  was  the  best  man  in  the  king- 
dom. She  could  hunt  all  day  and  then  dance  all  night, 
or  watch  masques  and  pageants,  till  the  "knees  of  strong 
men  trembled  under  them  as  they  wearily  waited  upon 
her."  She  kissed  whom  she  pleased ;  she  tickled  the  neck 
of  Leicester  once  as  he  knelt  before  her.  She  swore  like 
a  trooper  when  she  was  angry ;  nor  did  she  content  her- 
self with  words, — her  ladies  and  the  highest  officers  in 
the  land  felt  the  weight  of  her  hand.  She  collared  Hat- 
ton,  and  she  spat  upon  the  courtier's  coat  of  Sir  Matthew 
Arundel  when  his  foppery  displeased  her.  One  day  in 
1598  there  was  a  stormy  time  in  her  council  when  she 
and  the  favorite  Essex  differed  about  an  Irish  appoint- 
ment. She  addressed  him  sarcastically.  He  turned  his 
back  upon  her  with  an  expression  of  contempt.  There- 
upon she  gave  him  a  good  stinging  box  on  the  ear  and  told 
him  to  "go  to  the  devil." 

27 


t 


SHAKESPEARE    STUDIES 

She  called  the  members  of  her  privy  council  by  all 
sorts  of  nicknames.  The  Bishop  of  London  once  thought 
her  finery  unfitting  to  her  age,  and  in  a  sermon  endeav- 
ored to  raise  her  thoughts  from  the  ornaments  of  dress 
to  the  riches  of  heaven.  The  "fair  vestal  throned  by 
the  west"  thereupon  told  her  ladies  that  if  he  touched 
upon  that  subject  again,  she  would  fit  him  for  heaven, 
and  that  he  would  go  there  without  his  staff  and  would 
leave  his  mantle  behind  him. — Such  was  Spenser's 
Gloriana  in  real  life. 

****** 

Our  country  boy,  Shakespeare,  finally  went  up  to  Lon- 
don in  the  '8o's,  to  earn  a  living.  He  saw  a  London 
we  would  not  recognize.  It  had  fewer  than  two  hundred 
thousand  inhabitants.  It  was  a  medieval  city,  surrounded 
by  a  wall,  which  was  guarded  by  the  Tower  at  one 
end  and  by  the  Fleet  ditch  and  Blackfriars  at  the  other, 
with  the  cathedral  crowning  all.  It  lay  on  the  north  side 
of  the  Thames,  and  the  wall  made  a  circuit  of  two 
miles  about  it.  Seven  gates  pierced  the  wall  to  the 
north,  and  the  houses  stretched  along  the  roads  a  long 
way  out  into  the  country.  Westward  along  the  river 
were  palaces,  and  a  muddy  road  which  led  to  the  adjacent 
city  of  Westminster.  The  Thames,  famous  for  fish  and 
swans,  was  crossed  by  only  one  bridge,  which  was 
crowded  with  houses.  A  sight  near  the  center  of  the 
bridge  was  the  Nonesuch  House,  of  gilded  and  carved 
wood,  built  in  the  Low  Countries  and  brought  to  London 
in  parts  and  set  up  with  wooden  pins.  The  bridge  was 
so  crowded  that  the  river  was  the  great  highway.  On 
it  plied  small  boats;  there  were  from  two  thousand  to 
four  thousand  watermen  (according  to  varying  estimates), 
a  rude  and  quarrelsome  lot  of  men.  When  one  went  to  the 
theater,  he  took  a  boat  and  was  rowed  across  to  the 


SHAKESPEARE'S     ENGLAND 

south  side,  where  were  the  rings  for  bear-baiting  and 
bull-baiting,  the  theaters  and  other  places  of  amusement. 
The  city  fathers  would  not  allow  the  playhouses  within 
the  city  limits,  for  fear  of  fire,  or  of  pestilence  which 
might  be  disseminated  by  the  crowds,  so  the  actors  built 
their  places  just  outside  the  limits;  and  the  rabble  went 
to  them  in  boats,  just  as  Buffalonians  cross  to  Fort  Erie 
to  see  horse-racing. 

Shakespeare,  on  reaching  London,  perhaps  saw  the 
heads  of  traitors  and  felons  drying  over  the  city  gates 
and  at  the  end  of  the  bridge.  He  saw  narrow  streets, 
with  open  sewers  or  ditches,  and  wooden  houses  with 
many  gables.  As  he  walked  along,  perhaps  pails  of 
slops  fell  upon  him  from  overhanging  buildings.  They 
had  simple  ways  of  disposing  of  refuse  in  London  then. 

And  what  a  strange  throng  he  saw  in  the  streets! 
There  were  apprentices  in  swarms,  in  the  blue  gowns 
that  they  were  compelled  by  ordinance  to  wear;  there 
were  gallants  and  dames  in  all  the  colors  of  the  rainbow, 
only  the  clergy  and  thu?  lawyers  then  limited  themselves 
to  black;  there  were  women  in  masks,  and  fops  wearing 
bracelets  and  earrings ;  there  were  seamen  home  from  the 
tropics;  merchants  with  chains  of  gold,  and  merchants' 
wives,  who  shocked  the  Puritans  and  the  gentry  by  their 
elegance  of  apparel;  university  youths  come  up  to  town 
to  win  a  fortune  with  the  pen;  country  squires  marveling 
at  the  sights  and  storing  away  wondrous  tales  to 
tell  at  home  of  the  "chimes  at  midnight";  and  states- 
men, courtiers  and  ambassadors.  Countless  processions 
threaded  the  narrow  streets.  Perhaps  Shakespeare  saw 
a  seminary  priest,  or  a  counterfeiter  or  other  criminal, 
being  drawn  to  Tyburn  in  a  cart,  to  be  hanged,  drawn 
and  quartered.  The  pillory  for  necks  and  hands,  the 
stocks  for  feet,  told  of  minor  offenders.  Chains  fas- 

29 


SHAKESPEARE     STUDIES 

tened  up  at  one  side  of  the  street  marked  preparations 
for  blocking  the  way,  to  stop  the  march  of  mobs. 

The  shops  were  little  booths  open  in  front  like  bazaars ; 
the  shopkeepers  stood  before  them  and  invited  the 
passers-by  to  enter  with  a  "What  do  ye  lack?"  The 
tobacco  shops  became  one  of  the  sights  of  the  metropolis 
about  this  date;  in  1614  there  were  declared  to  be  seven 
thousand  of  them.  The  expert  tobacconist  took  young 
gallants  as  pupils  and  taught  them  how  to  load  their  pipes 
and  how  to  blow  balls  and  rings  of  smoke.  Tobacco 
ran  a  swift  course  in  Elizabethan  England ;  it  was  a  medi- 
cine, next  a  pleasure,  and  then  a  vice,  all  in  a  few  years. 

,We  know  that  the  painted  faces  of  the  women  were 
one  of  the  things  that  struck  the  notice  of  the  country- 
man from  Stratford.  The  fashions  were  never  more 
wonderful  than  in  Shakespeare's  England.  In  the  middle 
ages,  women  had  fanciful  headgear,  but  their  dresses 
were  plain.  But  under  Queen  Bess  things  were  different. 
The  great  ruff  was  a  feature  of  the  age.  Like  most 
striking  features  of  the  time,  it  was  adopted  from  Spain. 
It  began  as  a  loose  cambric  collar,  and  grew  so  enormous 
that  it  troubled  the  wearer  by  its  flappings.  Wires  were 
inserted  to  hold  it  out  and  up  from  the  neck,  and  in 
its  palmiest  days  it  reached  up  to  the  top  of  the  high- 
dressed  hair  and  had  three  or  four  minor  ruffs,  rufflets 
so  to  speak,  to  fill  the  space  between  it  and  the  shoulders. 
Toward  the  end  of  the  century,  a  clever  Belgian  woman 
taught  Londoners  how  to  starch,  and  goffering  irons,  or 
"poking  sticks  of  steel,"  were  likewise  invented  about 
the  same  time;  and  by  degrees  the  ruff  became  a  stiff 
frill.  The  shocked  Puritans  called  starch  "the  Devil's 
liquor/'  and  one  of  them,  Stubbes,  tells  a  warning  story 
of  a  young  lady  of  Antwerp  who  fell  into  the  power  of 
the  devil  because  he  taught  her  improved  ways  of  setting 

30 


SHAKESPEARE 'S     ENGLAND 

the   ruff.     After  she   died  her  coffin  was   opened,   andV          ,. 
"they  found  the  body  to  be  taken  away  and  a  black  cat,  />  /^ 
very  lean  and  deformed,  sitting  in  the  coffin,  setting  of 
great  ruffs  and  frizzling  of  hair,  to  the   great   fear   and 
wonder  of  all  beholders." 

Queen  Elizabeth  had  red  hair,  and  later  in  life  wore    ^j 
an  auburn  wig  to  recall  old  times.     Of  course,  false  hair     ' 
became  fashionable.    She  was  pale  and  fair,  and  women 
in  general,  therefore,  desired  a  "pale  bleake  color,"  and 
to  that  end  swallowed  gravel,  ashes  and  tallow, — so  we 
are  told.     And  her  long  waist  and  narrow  chest  gave  to 
all  English  womanhood  a  pinched  look. 

Both  men  and  women  wore  enormous  ruffs;  and  to 
balance  these  they  swelled  out  below,  so  that  a  gallant 
of  Elizabeth's  time  had  the  outline  of  a  fat  mandolin. 
A  modified  form  of  the  "farthingale,"  or^hoop^  for  vfr. 

women,  was  introduced  in  1545.  With  greater  expansion 
there  was  greater  opportunity  for  jewels  and  ornaments 
and  embroidery ;  and  Elizabeth's  girth  steadily  grew,  and 
at  the  end  of  her  reign  there  was  a  "wheel"  farthingale, 
by  which  the  skirt  was  drawn  out  at  the  top,  in  a  right 
angle  with  the  body,  and  formed  a  sort  of  table  on  which 
the  arms  could  rest.  Elizabeth's  dress  was  covered  with 
ornaments,  quiltings,  slashings,  jewels,  etc.  It  may  be 
mentioned  that  looking  glasses  were  first  introduced  in 
this  reign,  to  supersede  the  mirrors  of  polished  steel; 
they  probably  encouraged  dress. 

The  gallants  aped  the  women  in  extravagance  of  dress. 
Their  breeches,  or  galligascons,  were  stuffed  to  such  an 
extent  that  stooping  was  difficult.  They  were  moreover 
cut  and  slashed  like  the  ladies'  gowns.  Stubbes,  hearing 
that  a  hundred  pounds  had  been  paid  for  a  pair  of 
breeches,  cries  "God  be  merciful  unto  us!"  The  men 
had  fancy  stockings  that  cost  205.  a  pair;  painted  or 


SHAKESPEARE    STUDIES 

embroidered  shoes  with  roses  on  them ;  and  were  specially 
dainty  in  the  matter  of  hats.  The  lower  orders  copied 
the  higher.  Lord  Keeper  Edgerton  said  in  1596  in  a 
case  in  the  Star  Chamber:  "The  excess  of  apparel  in 
merchants'  wives  and  daughters,  and  in  all  degrees,  is 
a  pestilent  canker  in  the  commonwealth;  a  means  by 
which  persons  of  small  estate  do  prodigally  waste  their 
patrimony."  But  efforts  to  regulate  dress  were  of  no 
avail;  hurly-burly  Elizabethan  times  were  too  much  for 
them.  John  Bulwer  tells  the  story  of  a  gallant  who  rose 
from  his  chair  to  salute  some  ladies.  There  was  a  nail 
in  the  chair,  and  bran  began  to  pour  from  a  tear  in  his 
immense  breeches  as  "from  a  mill  that  was  grinding," 
and  he  shrank  and  shrank  and  his  breeches  settled  and 
settled  until  finally  he  stood  there  a  mere  spindle. 

One  of  the  sights  of  London  that  Shakespeare  must 
have  enjoyed  was  the  stalls  of  the  booksellers  in  St.  Paul's 
churchyard.  This  was  the  first  age  in  human  history,  be 
it  remembered,  in  which  common  people  were  able  to 
buy  and  read  books  for  entertainment.  In  St.  Paul's, 
the  life  of  London  was  to  be  seen  best.  The  church 
had  become  a  sort  of  club,  or  general  meeting  place. 
Mules  and  horses  were  no  longer  to  be  found  there,  as  in 
Bloody  Mary's  reign;  but  the  center  aisle  was  the  resort 
of  all  London  as  a  place  for  gossip  and  business.  Paul's 
Walk,  as  it  was  called,  was  crowded  for  an  hour  or  so 
before  dinner  at  noon,  and  for  three  hours  in  the  after- 
noon. To  see  everybody  and  to  be  seen,  go  to  Paul's 
Walk! 

The  different  classes  rubbed  shoulders  more,  in  the 
little  London  of  Elizabeth,  than  afterward;  but  they 
intermingled  less, — each  class  kept  within  its  limits,  bar- 
ring the  eternal  disposition  of  the  citizens'  wives  to  ape 
their  betters.  The  importance  of  the  court  in  the  city 

32 


SHAKESPEARE'S     ENGLAND 

life  is  hard  to  realize  today.  The  court  was  continually 
before  the  eyes  of  the  citizens;  its  retainers  made  up 
much  of  the  population;  and  it  was  producing  some 
gorgeous  spectacle  or  other  all  the  time.  Queen  Eliza- 
beth courted  popularity  and  she  loved  gayety,  and  did 
not  avoid  showing  herself  in  London.  She  was  fond  of 
dancing,  and  when  she  was  a  wrinkled  old  woman  with 
black  teeth,  she  was  seen  one  day  practicing  a  dance  step 
alone,  to  keep  up  the  limberness  necessary  to  impress 
foreign  ambassadors  with  her  vitality. 

Taine  calls  the  England  of  the  time  "a  den  of  lions." 
With  all  the  life  and  rude  jollity,  and  considering  the 
national  temper,  it  is  no  wonder  that,  in  the  playhouses 
across  the  Thames,  the  wild  and  reckless  Elizabethan 
drama  broke  the  shackles  of  the  classical  rules  that  the 
scholars  tried  to  fasten  upon  it.  It  aped  life  itself,  and 
the  rough  crowds  in  the  theaters  now  shouted  at  buf- 
foonery, now  listened  silently  to  a  Hamlet's  soliloquy, 
and  moved  from  Egypt  to  England  in  the  space  of  a 
minute  with  no  regard  to  unities  of  time  or  place.  And 
note  how  versatile  the  men  of  the  age  were:  Raleigh, 
courtier,  soldier,  explorer,  poet,  historian,  was  an  example 
of  them.  And  note  the  Wild  Western  uncertainties  of 
life.  Take  the  poets  Surrey,  Wyatt,  Raleigh,  Marlowe, 
Sidney,  Spenser,  Jonson :  only  two  of  them,  Spenser  and 
Jonson,  died  in  their  beds,  and  Jonson  had  killed  a  man 
in  a  duel. 

As  one  of  the  sights  of  London,  let  us  go  to  the  theater. 
They  are  all  afternoon  performances,  what  we  should 
call  matinees,  because  it  is  hard  to  light  the  theaters  and 
there  would  be  more  danger  of  fire  at  night.  We  go 
across  that  curious  old  London  bridge,  between  the  lines 
of  houses,  past  the  queer  Nonesuch  House  and  the  water- 
works built  at  the  middle  of  the  bridge,  and  under  the 

33 


SHAKESPEARE    STUDIES 

warning  row  of  bleaching  heads  of  criminals.  We  go 
along  the  south  bank  .of  the  river  to  one  of  the  round, 
three-story  buildings  of  wood  where  the  players  carry 
on  their  business.  A  flag  flying  from  the  top  of  the 
building  lets  us  know  that  a  performance  is  to  be  given. 
^_  Shall  we  pay  a  penny  and  go  into  the  pit,  and  stand  up 
two  hours  or  so  to  hear  Falstaff  jest  or  Pistol  rant  ?  Or 
shall  we  pay  more,  even  up  to  half  a  crown,  and  get  a 
place  in  a  gallery  or  box,  or  even  show  ourselves  off 
upon  the  stage,  where  we  can  sit  at  the -sides  and  observe 
(and  be  observed  of  everybody)  ?  The  theater  resembles 
the  inn  yards  where  the  English  drama  passed  its  child- 
hood. There  is  a  pit,  open  to  the  weather;  tiers  of 
galleries  surround  it;  and  the  stage,  protected  by  a  little 
roof,  projects  halfway  into  the  pit.  There  is  no  scenery 
and  there  are  no  women  actors.  Boys  take  the  women's 
parts.  The  Elizabethan  dramatist  can  change  the  scene 
as  often  as  he  wishes,  with  no  fears  of  a  Belasco.  All 
that  is  necessary  for  the  scene-shifter  to  do  is  to  come 
out  on  the  stage  and  hang  up  a  sign  with  "Venice"  or 
"Vienna"  written  on  it,  and  your  imagination  will  have 
to  do  the  rest.  But  the  actors  wear  sumptuous  costumes. 
Probably  the  coat  upon  that  actor  cost  more  than  the 
playwright  has  received  for  his  play.  There  may  be 
music  between  the  acts,  but  there  are  no  long  waits,  and 
of  course  there  is  no  thumping  of  scenery  and  there  is 
no  dizzying  test  of  the  spot-light. 

What  a  lively,  jostling,  rude,  unmannerly  audience  it 
is!  Painted  ladies;  gallants  in  huge  breeches  and  with 
strange  beards;  apprentices,  quick  to  approve  and  quick 
to  jeer;  bef rilled  wives  of  citizens;  stray  countrymen; 
a  pit  full  of  "rascality,"  catcalling  and  throwing  missiles. 
But  let  us  do  the  thing  rightly  and  go  up  on  the  stage, 
"on  the  very  rushes  where  Comedy  is  to  daunce,"  as 

34 


SHAKESPEARE'S     ENGLAND 

old  Dekker  puts  it.  There  is  where  you  really  enjoy 
the  performance.  You  can  get  a  good  stool  for  a  six- 
pence. There  is  where  the  "best  and  most  essentionable 
parts  of  a  gallant  (good  clothes,  a  proportionable  leg  and 
a  tolerable  beard)  are  perfectly  revealed,"  as  Dekker 
again  informs  us.  There  you  can  hiss  or  applaud  in  the 
sight  of  everybody ;  can  see  what  is  going  on  in  the 
dressing-rooms,  and  watch  the  play  as  almost  a  part  of 
it ;  can  pose  as  a  critic ;  can  ask  in  a  loud  voice  what  the 
play  is  about;  can  examine  the  lace  on  the  actors'  suits 
while  they  are  ranting  their  lines.  The  scarecrows  in 
the  pit  may  mew  and  hiss  at  you,  even  throw  dirt  from 
the  ground  at  you;  but  do  not  be  frightened  away, — 
everybody  notices  you. 

Dekker  gives  some  advice  to  the  gallant  upon  the 
stage:  "Before  the  play  begins,  fall  to  cards."  If  you 
have  a  spite  against  the  playwright,  get  up  from  your 
stool  at  a  crisis  in  the  plot  and  go  out;  or,  if  the  weather 
is  bad,  stay  and  tickle  the  ears  of  your  neighbors  with 
a  straw  and  make  them  laugh.  "Mew  at  passionate 
speeches,  yawn  at  merry  ones,  find  fault  with  the  music, 
whew  at  the  children's  actions,  whistle  at  the  songs." 
While  you  are  doing  this,  the  groundlings  in  the  pit  will 
howl,  at  you  and  the  players  impartially. 

It  is  amid  such  scenes  that  you  listen  to  a  Hamlet  or  a 
Tempest. 

One  of  the  great  features  of  the  reign  was  the 
progresses  made  by  Queen  Elizabeth  to  towns  and 
universities.  She  was  parsimonious  and  enjoyed  "visit- 
ing round,"  and  she  liked  the  gifts  and  the  shows;  and 
not  many  years  passed  by  without  such  journeys,  which 
introduced  the  court  to  the  country.  The  town  account- 
books  of  the  time  contain  many  interesting  details  which 
picture  to  us  rural  England.  What  a  scrubbing  up  there 
was  along  the  line  of  march! 

35 


SHAKESPEARE     STUDIES 

The  biggest  single  expense  of  the  towns,  when  the 
queen  came,  was  the  gift  to  Her  Majesty — thirty  to 
forty  pounds  in  gold,  generally.  The  queen's  servants 
went  ahead  to  survey  the  town  against  her  coming,  and 
they  had  to  be  fee'd.  There  were  trumpeters  to  be  paid, 
-and  yeomen  of  various  kinds, — the  yeomen  of  the  bottles 
first,  then  those  of  the  mace  and  sword,  and  musicians 
of  various  kinds.  Men  had  to  be  paid  for  fixing  the 
roads,  and  for  paving  the  market  place  perhaps.  At 
Leicester  the  town  council  ordered  that  "the  Mayor,  and 
such  as  have  been  Mayors,  meet  her  in  scarlet  gowns, 
and  the  rest  of  the  twenty-four  aldermen  shall  wear  black 
gowns,  made  of  a  new  comely  fashion ;  also  the  forty- 
eight  members  of  the  common  council  to  wear  coats  of 
fine  black  cloth  and  to  be  guarded  with  velvet,  and  to 
meet  Her  Majesty  on  horseback.  And  that  every  house- 
holder forthwith  amend  and  beautify  the  fore  fronts  of 
their  houses,  and  amend  the  pavement."  At  Worcester 
the  council  ordered  the  city  gates  to  be  painted  ash  color, 
with  Her  Majesty's  arms  without  and  within,  and  "also 
that  every  person  having  any  dunghills  within  the  liber- 
ties shall  cause  the  same  to  be  carried  away." 

Many  records  of  that  time  indicate  the  prices  that  the 
Elizabethans  had  to  pay  for  what  they  ate.  For  instance, 
at  Norwich  in  1561,  the  Earls  of  Northumberland  and 
Huntington  were  entertained  at  the  Duke  of  Norfolk's 
castle.  The  records  of  that  entertainment  contain  the 
following  items:  Eight  stone  of  beef  (a  stone  is  14 
pounds),  8d. ;  cheeses,  4d.  each;  butter,  2^/2  d.  a  pint;  a 
hind  quarter  of  veal,  lod. ;  a  fore  quarter,  5d. ;  leg  of 
mutton,  5d. ;  six  pullets  for  a  shilling ;  eight  rabbits  for 
is.  8d. ;  eight  partridges,  2s. ;  34  eggs  for  6d. ;  a  bushel  of 
flour,  6d. ;  a  peck  of  oatmeal,  2d. ;  sixteen  loaves  of  white 
bread,  4d. ;  barrel  of  table  beer,  is.;  sixteen  oranges 

36 


SHAKESPEARE'S     ENGLAND 

(which  were  then  often  called  Portingales),  2d. ;  gallon 
of  white  wine,  is.  And  the  cook  got  is.  2d. — Yet 
probably  the  housewives  of  Queen  Elizabeth's  day  talked 
as  warmly  of  the  cost  of  living  as  we  do  today ! 

People  rose  early  then.  Four  was  the  regular  time, 
with  breakfast  at  five,  when  the  men  went  to  work  or 
business.  Dinner  was  about  noon.  And  people  went  to 
bed  earlier  than  now,  because  candlelight  did  not  encour- 
age late  hours.  The  great  drink  of  Shakespeare's  Eng- 
land was  beer ;  there  was  no  great  excess  of  drunkenness 
until  Holland  gin  was  imported.  There  were  four  kinds 
of  white  bread,  which  the  gentry  ate;  the  poorer  folk 
ate  bread  of  rye,  barley,  or  even  oats  and  acorns.  All 
foreigners  wonder  at  the  abundance  of  the  Englishman's 
table  and  his  liking  for  good  cheer.  All  of  them,  too, 
speak  about  the  prettiness  of  the  English  women,  with 
their  white  skins.  They  also  mention,  with  general 
approval,  the  practice  of  kissing  the  lady  of  the  house 
when  you  called  and  again  when  you  went  away;  even 
grave  Erasmus,  in  an  earlier  reign,  remarked  this  custom 
with  commendation. 

We  read  that  the  Earl  and  Countess  of  Northumber- 
land, when  in  the  country,  used  to  breakfast  together  at 
7  o'clock  in  the  morning.  They  had  upon  the  table  "a 
quart  of  ale,  a  chine  of  beef  and  a  quart  of  wine."  How 
they  divided  it,  and  whether  they  had  bread,  does  not 
appear.  But  we  are  sure  of  one  thing,  and  that  is,  that 
they  did  not  have  coffee  or  tea.  These  did  not  come  in 
for  nearly  a  century.  Samuel  Pepys  records  in  his  diary 
for  Sept.  28,  1660:  "I  did  send  for  a  cup  of  tee  (a 
China  drink),  of  which  I  had  never  drank  before."  And 
two  years  later  he  records:  "Home,  and  there  find  my 
wife  making  tea,  a  drink  which  Mr.  Pelling,  the  Pothe- 
cary,  tells  her  is  good  for  her  cold  and  defluxions." 

37 


SHAKESPEARE     STUDIES 

With  a  gay,  pleasure-loving  queen,  a  rough  population 
which  lived  more  out  of  doors  than  people  do  now,  and 
which  loved  sports,  Shakespeare's  England  was  a  merry 
England — at  least  as  merry  as  any  England  before  or 
since.  But  the  Puritans  were  coming  in,  to  frown  on 
theaters,  bear-baiting,  bull-baiting,  and  other  sinful 
pleasures ;  and  Bishop  Corbet  was  to  write : 

At  morning  and  at  evening  both, 

You  merry  were,  and  glad ! 
So  little  care  of  sleep,  or  sloth, 

The  pretty  ladies  had. 
When  Tom  came  home  from  labor, 

Or  Ciss  to  milking  rose ; 
Then  merrily,  merrily  went  their  tabor, 

And  nimbly  went  their  toes. 

Witness,  those  rings  and  roundelays 

Of  theirs,  which  yet  remain, 
Were  footed,  in  Queen  Mary's  days, 

On  many  a  grassy  plain ; 
But  since,  of  late,  Elizabeth, 

And  later  James  came  in, 
They  never  danced  on  any  heath 

As  when  the  time  hath  been. 

An  age  that  ate  and  danced  and  an  age  that  dared, 

with  a  grey  Puritan  cloud  rising  in  the  sky that  was 

Shakespeare's  England. 


HAMLET 

-  BY  — 
F.    HYATT   SMITH 


HAMLET 

THE  fundamental  idea  of  this  immortal  play  is/the 
greatness  of  action.  The  dramatist  teaches  that  con- 
sideration robs  action  of  its  power.  ^The  native 
hue  of  resolution  is  sicklied  o'er  with  the  pale  cast  of 
thought."l\  The'basis  of  Hamlet  is  profoundly  theological. 
Divine  will  and  human  freedom  perpetually  interplay.  The 
problem  of  life  is  presented  before  us  like  a  vast  land- 
scape. S^cre|_guilt  is  also  portrayed  with  a  power 
excelled  only  in  Macbeth-  *"Foul  deeds  will  rise  though 
all  the  earth  o'erwhelm  them  to  men's  eyes." 

Gervinus  ingeniously  declares  that  the  drama  has  two 
moral  themes:  "that  intentions,  conceived  in  passion, 
vanish  wjt)*PT:he  emotions^ — and  that  the  human  will 
changes  and  is  influenced  and  enfeetled  by  delays." 

There  have  been  four  views  concerning  the  play ;  first, 
that  Hamlet's  delay  was  due  to  external  causes.  This 
falls  down,  for  there  is  no  reference  to  it,  and  he  planned 
the  play  scene  to  convince  himself ;  second,  that  he  was 
restrained  by  conscience  from  revenge,  but  against  this 
is  Act  V,  scene  2,  line  63 ;  third,  that  a  lovely  nature 
without  strength  of  nerve  sinks  under  a  great  burden; 
this  is  inadequate;  fourth,  Coleridge's  view  that  Hamlet 
is  the  tragedy  of  reflection,  that  irresolution^  isj:he  cause 
of  his  ddayT^nd  thatTiis  is  the  resjilt_jof-jpeculaiipn 
in  an  introspective^ mind.  Coleridge  first  brought  this 
explanation  forward  and  it  is  now  generally  accepted. 
If  we  add  an  inherited  melancholy  and  exquisite_sensi- 
bility,  the  drama  is  as  wide  as  humanity  and  as  enduring 
as  time. 

The  style  is  that  of  Julius  Caesar,  very  weighty  and 
sokmn.  "The  play  contains  3924  lines.  Macbeth  is  the 
shortest  of  the  tragedies.  The  scene  of  Hamlet  is  Elsi- 


SHAKESPEARE    STUDIES 

nore,  a  seaport  of  Denmark,  on  the  island  of  Zealand, 
not  far  from  Copenhagen,  where  a  statue  to  Hamlet  may 
be  seen.  Scarlet  was  the  royal  color  and  hence  the 
Queen  and  Claudius  oppose  the  appearance  of  Hamlet  in 
black.  Alone  among  Shakespeare's  plays  Hamlet  has  a 
northern  atmosphere.  The  dramatist  loved  the  warmth 
and  beauty  of  southern  climes,  and  the  melancholy  Dane 
alone  is  set  beneath  gray  skies  and  cloudy  nights. 

The  first  Act  discloses$Denmark's  condition,  Hamlet 
appears    and    utters    his^first  solilo^uy^phelia^enters, 
(j)Polonius  gives  his  wonderful  advice  to  his  son,  ancrHam- 
let  meets  the  ghost. 

The  second  Act  shows^Hamlet  's  influence  on  Ophelia, 
«fae  has  put  the  aatic  disposition  onj^he  players  arouse 
his  determination^Ophelia  thinks  hisJjrain  unhinged  by 
love,Mie  plans  to  test  the  guilty  king/he 
iqto^fury,  and  a  night  passes  before  the  crisjk. 

The  third  AcTgives  theQgfeaF  soliloquy,  which,  is  the 
finest  debate  on  man  and  suicide  in  all  literature) 
talks  with  Ophelia^ne  goes  to  his  mother's  chamber 

wl*.  /^2\ 

finds  the  king  prayingJome  kills  old  PoloniusSygives 
advice  to  the  players^fand  the  court  play  follows^ 

The  fourth  Act  shows<PH^imlet  leaving  for  England ; 
we  ha^re  therttiird^>lilo^^  is  now  insane,  she 

dies ;  arid  the  KmgarmLaertes  conspire  against  Hamlet. 

Thejifth  Act  gives  the^grave-digging  scene,  Hamlet  is 
prostrated,  but  "there's  a  divinity  that  doth  shajpe^ouf 
ends  rough  hew  them  how  we  wilF\g)Hamlet  and  Laertes 
meet,  they  fence,  Hamlet  is  struck  down,  but  kills  the 
Kine:  the  Queen  drmks  the  poisoned  cup  by  mistake; 
Laertes  dies,  then  Hamlet,  and  the  tragedy  ends.  Some 
think  that  the  entire  action  included  but  ten  days. 

This  play  shows  Shakespeare's/   great    knowledge    of 
""    mental  philosophy.     The* pangs  of  despised  love,  the  law's 

42 


\ 


HAMLET 

delay,  the  insolence  of  office,  and  the  spurns  which  patient 
merit  of  the  unworthy  takes, — these  are  still  the  source 
of  melancholy  and  the  cause  of  madness.  V^\\\  is  fafc% 
and  when  will  abdicates,  chance  rules.  We  have  the 
nothingness  of  reflection.  The  great  monologue  o 
cide  and  doubt  is  followed  by  another  equally  remarkable 
on  reason  and  resolution.  Tennyson  thought  Hamlet  the 
first  creatlorT  in~  a1t~tfterature.  Thinking  creates  more 
problems  than  it  solves. "[.Enormous  intellectual  activity 
and  aversion  to  real  action  are  here  combined  with 
exquisite  power.J[ 

The  S9lilogj^utfh4hc^gra_ve^ard  is  the  best  of  sermons 
on  the  vanity  of  life.  And  where  else  is  conscience  so 
portrayed?  Hamlet  knew  the  force  of  conscience  and 
instructed  the  players;  he  watched  the  features  of  the 
guilty  monarch.  The  voice  of  his  brothers  blood  cries 
to  him  from  the  ground.  "O  my  offence  is  rank  and 
smells  to  heaven."  The  Queen  shudders  as  Hamlet  holds 
up  before  her  his  father's  picture.  The  criminal  lawyer 
who  would  force  a  confession  from  the  accused,  can 
have  no  better  textbook  than  this  play.  And  we  'are 
taught  that  ^thinking  without  action  destroys  belief  \ 
Hamlet  lays  hold  of  nothing  with  energy.  His  very  faith 
becomes  clouded  and  transitory,  because  he  never  acts. 
He  is  the  type  of  thousands  who  waver  between  immor- 
tality and  despair,  ft 

This  great  play  alone  reveals  the  indebtedness  of  the 
King  James  version  of  the  Bible  to  Shakespeare.  He 
came  when  the  Bishop's  Bible  was  in  use  and  he  used 
it  freely;  indeed  all  the  secular  authors  in  the  world 
combined  do  not  give  so  much  evidence  of  the  reading 
of  the  sacred  volume  as  the  great  drargatjst  alone.  "It 
Jiath  the  primal  eldest  curse  upon't,  a  £w*hfi£*s  murder" 
is  the  curse  of  Cain.  The  noblejipostrophe  to  man_m 

43 


SHAKESPEARE    STUDIES 

Act  II.  is  almost  a  paraphrase  of  the  Psalms.  VThere's 
a  divinity  that  shapes  our  ends  rough  hew  them  how  we 
will,"  is  an  echo  of  Romans  and  its  doctrines.  J"The 
world  is  weary,  stale,  flat  and  unprofitable,"  recalls 
Ecclesiastes.  *  All  the  functiojis_of  repentance  are  given 
in  that  speech  of  the  king  in  Act  III.  -'The  soul  is  called 
immortal.  Jepthah  and  his  daughter  illustrate  Act  II. 
We  hear  of  a  time  in  Rome  when  the  graves  stood  ten- 
antless  as  in  Jerusalem.  There  is  a  "special  providence 
in  the  fall  of  a  sparrow"  is  a  direct  quotation  from  our 
Lord.  •'The  Ghost  confined  to  fast  in  fires  till  the  foul 
crimes  are  burnt  and  purged  away,  is  a  conception  of 
Purgatory.  Hamlet's  cry  on  seeing  the  apparition, 
"Angels  and  ministers  of  grace  defend  us,"  is  from  the 
Book  of  Hebrews.  N"The  devil  hath  power  to  assume 
a  pleasing  shape,"  is  an  echo  of  St.  Paul  who  says, 
"Satan  can  transform  himself  into  an  angel  of  light." 
Polonius'  familiar  advice  to  his  son  is  the  practical  wis- 
dom of  St.  James.  "We  are  arrant  knaves  all,"  said 
Hamlet  to  Ophelia. 

The  Scriptures  assure  us  that  all  have  sinned.  Con- 
science does  make  cowards  of  us  all.  Nowhere  are  the 
efficacy  and  purpose  of  prayer  better  delineated  than  in 
this  play.  "Words  without  thoughts  never  to  heaven 
go."  ""There's  nothing  good  or  bad  but  thinking  makes 
it  so,"  what  is  that  but  "as  a  man  thinketh  in  his  heart  so 
is  he?"  "The  undiscovered  country  from  whose  bourne 
no  traveller  returns,"  shows  that  Shakespeare  was  think- 
ing of  Job, — "I  go  whence  I  shall  not  return  even  to  the 
land  of  darkness  and  the  shadow  of  death."  Hamlet 
calls  the  human  body  a  temple  as  does  St.  Paul.  "O 
shame!  where  is  thy  blush,"  is  a  skillful  turn  of  the  sub- 
lime, "O  death  where  is  thy  sting?" — Our  literature  will 
never  regain  body  and  force  and  majesty  until  men  drink 

44 


HAMLET 

long  and  deep  of  the  English  Bible,  the  source  of  power 
and  beauty  in  Shakespeare,  Byron,  De  Quincey,  Words- 
worth, Coleridge,  and  Ruski 

In  Claudius  the  j£jflg"  we  hav^a  man  regal,  dignified, 
with  lofe^  manners  and  never  sfcaall ;  yet  treacherous, 
faithless,  and  untrustworthy.  The^ohost  calls  him  seduc- 
tive. When  Hamlet  meets  him,  his  denunciations  dissolve. 
He  is  a  large  and  attractive  man,  yet  lives  in  dread  of 
death  and  makes  his  way  by  murder.  He  is  the  Cain 
of  Shakespeare.  Polonius  is  a  type  of  the  politician  in 
his  dotage,  a  statesiflarroUt  of  repair,  a  man  of  intrigue 
and  self-interest,  to  whom  Hamlet  is  a  constant  mystery. 
He  is  always  hunting  for  some  plot  to  guide.  Hence 
he  perpetually  trips  himself.  No  trace  of^  the  real  dip- 
lomatist is  in  him.  He  agrees  with  everyone  and  "cannot 
see~when  he  is  justly  ridiculed!  His  "famous  advice  to 
his  sonpartially  redeems  this  hesitating~arid  negative 
character.  Here  Shakespeare  is  rivalled  only  by  Burns 
in  his  lines  to  a  young  friend. 

Horatio^  is  a  very  Apollo  in  moral  beauty.  Disin- 
terested, loyal,  prompt,  fearless,  oF"deepfeeling,  true 
to  his  convictions,  ready  to  warn  Hamlet  at  his  own  risk, 
utterly  unselfish,  just,  tender,  strong,  and  yet  of  sur- 
passing modesty.  Shakespeare  seems  to  have  drawn  in 
him  the  ideal  friend :  one  who  indeed  I/is  not  passion's 
slave  and  who  in  suffering  all  suffers  nothing,  with 
no  revenue  but  his  good  spirits/'  and  well  does  Hamlet 
wear  him  in  "his  heart's  core."/^ 

fl  Laertesjives  close  to  the  earth.     He  is  a  pure  materia 
tyMfet.     "Be  wary,  best  safety  lies  in  fear,"  he  says.     He  is 
'^economical :  V'And  for  my  means,  I'll  husband  them 
'  well  they  shall  go  far  with  little J\  Trained  in  France, 
he  is  a  man  of  the  world,  destitute  of  spirituality,  fond 
of  music  and  fencing,  false  to  his  friends,  ungenerous, 

45 


SHAKESPEARE     STUDIES 

unreflective,  but  of  prompt  energy  and  decision.  In  the 
whole  play  he  is  the  only  opposite  of  Hamlet.  This 
shows  Shakespeare's  wisdom^ 

Weakness,  irresolution,  a  willingness  to  buy  stolen 
goods,  the  puppet  of  the  King,  having  a  flexible  con- 
science, and  incapable  of  lastingrepentance^— such  is  tlie 
Queen.  We  are  ever  disappointed  in  this  woman  of 
paste.  Yet  she  surprises  us  once  when  she  nobly 
addresses  Ophelia,  scattering  "sweets  to  the  sweet"  on 
her  grave.  And  she  is  Hamlet's  mother  and  the  more's 
the  marvel.  We  are  not  told  her  share  in  the  awful 
crime,  ^er  weakness  crowns  her  son's  sorrow. 

."A  bloody  deed,  almost  as  bad,  good  mother;  as  kill 
a  king  and  marry  with  his  brother !" 

£  Poor  Ophelia !  In  all  the  list  of  Shakespeare's  women 
where  is  there  one  so  pathetic?  Too  good  for  earth,  too 
pure  for  life,  never  disclosing  her  love,  and  ending  her 
spotless  career  in  madness;  she  is  too  delicate  and 
unworldly  to  analyzQy-a  fragile  shell,  a  momentary  dream. 
Her  wreck  is  the  climax  of  sadness.  Her  hopes  bud  only 
to  droop!  Hermind  disintegrates  like  Prospero's  vision. 
Perhaps  no  character  in  literature  has  so  awakened  pity. 

4  She  cannot  rise  from  calamity,  like  Hero ;  but  sinks 
beneath  it,  like  a  sensitive  plant. 

And  what  of  Hamlet?  Is  he  not  Shakespeare's 
riddle?  Confessedly  his  master  creation,  he  has  attracted, 
enthralled,  and  puzzled  the  first  intellects  of  the  world. 
"Hamlet  is  Shakespeare,"  says  Taine.  "Hamlet  is  Ham- 
let," says  Hebler.  "It  is  we  who  are  Hamlet,"  says 
Hazlitt.  At  the  beginning,  and  before  his  mind  has  been 
shocked  by  his  father's  apparition,  he  ponders  on  the 
emptiness  of  this  life  and  the  solemn  mysteries  of  the 
life  to  come.  "O  that  this  too  too  solid  flesh  would 
melt!"  This  is  the  natural  outcome  of  his  reflective 

46 


HAMLET 

soul.  In  the  earliest  passage  in  which  he  communes  with 
himself,  he  broods  on  the  advisability  of  suicide.  He 
was  marvelously  sensitive  to  all  the  miseries  of  life.  "O 
that  the  Everlasting  had  not  fixed  His  canon  'gainst  self- 
slaughter."  To  him  it  was  a  hollow  pageant:  "how 
weary,  stale,  flat  and  unprofitable,  seem  to  me  all  the 
uses  of  this  world." 

Out  of  the  dim  unknown  streamed  the  influences  to 
which  he  was  singularly  responsive.  Open  is  he  to  all 
those  occult  forces — "There  are  more  things  in  heaven  and 
earth,  Horatio,  than  are  dreamt  of  in  your  philosophy." 
Brooding  melancholy,  the  poetic  temperament,  a  spiritual- 
ized intellect,  a  womanly  softness,  an  enfeebled  will,  a 
princely  grace,  a  piteous  humor,  and  a  mighty  heart:  all 
meet  in  this  most  subtle  creation  of  the  world's  most 
i,  gifted  mind.  Grief  breaks  his  heart.  \  He  is  charged 
(  with  a  filial  duty  for  which  his  will  is  inadequate.  As 
Goethe  said,  "he  is  an  acorn  planted  in  a  vase.'^  His  i 
outlook  of  the  universe  is  so  vast  that  his  sense  of  respon- 
sibility  is  paralyzed  and  his  ability,  for  action  is  arrested. 
Great  is  his  thinking,  but  it  is  without  purpose.  He 
roams  in  the  twilight  between  reason  and  madness. 
Heaven  enraptures  him,  and  Hell  haunts  him.  No  char-1 
acter,  it  is  said,  since  Christ,  has  ever  formed  an  object 
of  such  absorbing  interest  to  men.  Apart  from  his  set- 
ting he  would  still  be  Hamlet.  Grand  in  his  conceptions, 
lonely  in  his  grandeur,  desolate  in  his  pain,  he  is  the 
eternal  mouthpiece  for  all  men  who  confess  the  universe 
a  complexity,  a  paradox,  a  puzzle.  "To  be  or  not  to 
/No  sadder  feature  in  Hamlet  appears  than  his  inabilit 
to  find  solace  in  love.//  Ophelia  is  incompetent  to  under- 
stand him,  and  loneliness  again  is  his  atmosphere.  Men, 
to  him  stand  self -revealed.  "Suit  the  action  to  the  word,' 
the  word  to  the  action — hold  the  mirror  up  to  nature,"- 

47 


SHAKESPEARE     STUDIES 

these  words  are  the  model  for  the  stageV  He  pulls  off 
men's  disguises  as  easily  as  he  casts  aside  his  own  cloak. 
In  passages  that  defy  criticism,  he  uncovers  motives, 
ends,  hopes,  fears,  virtues,  defects,  and  somehow  our 
experience  always  throbs  "yes"  in  response.  Hamlet  is 
never  at  rest.  All  things  to  him  are  shadows.  Like 
Paul,  he  saw  that  the  things  which  are  seen  are  temporal. 
Yet  his  spirit  is  indomitable.  Distracted  and  irresolute, 
he  never  surrenders.  He  stands,  a  lofty  soul,  perplexed 
by  life's  mystery,  depressed  by  affliction,  awed  by  the 
nearness  of  the  other  world,  yet  confronted  by  the  stern 
duties  of  the  hour.  The  parting  from  Ophelia  is  desolate 
and  tragic,  and  flashes  a  light  into  his  inner  heart.  "I 
loved  Ophelia,  forty  thousand  brothers  could  not  make 
up  my  sum." 

Beneath  all  of  Hamlet's  words,  like  the  rocks  beneath 
the  soil,  we  may  discover  a  great  mental  force  and  a 
courtly  elegance,  as  native  to  him  as  beauty  to  the  rose. 
Sometimes  he  is  dull  and  inert ;  again  he  is  all  life.  Grief 
corrodes  his  grandeur.  In  the  Ghost-scene  he  is  super- 
stitious :  "I'll  watch  tonight,  perchance  'twill  walk  again." 
With  Ophelia  he  is  tender;  when  Polonius  dies,  he  is 
furious ;  "How  now  !  a  rat  ?  Dead,  for  a  ducat,  dead !" ; 
at  Ophelia's  grave  he  is  in  despair.  Predisposed  to  medi- 
tation on  the  vanity  of  life,  his  soul  was  crowded  with 
august  and  portentous  fancies,  weird  as  the  witches  in 
Macbeth;  and  he  sways  like  a  balloon  when  he  is  in  touch 
with  these  unearthly  powers.  "Angels  and  ministers  of 
grace  defend  us !"  Princely  in  action,  exalted  in  manner, 
tearful  in  humor,  incomparable  in  thought,  his  power  to 
execute  is  completely  benumbed,  and  fate  reigns  over  will. 

No  real  thinker  can  study  Hamlet  and  remain  an 
agnostic.  There  is  patient  sweetness.  There  is  wonder- 
ful pathos.  There  is  vital  attachment  to  Horatio.  There 


HAMLET 

is  love  for  his  father's  memory.  There  is  a  sense  of 
earth's  misery,  of  the  instability  of  all  things  about  us, 
that  almost  remind  one,  at  times,  of  Christ's  lament  over 
Jerusalem.  He  is  man  at  the  apex  of  his  development, 
disappointed,  unsatisfied,  shrouded  in  doubt,  struggling 
for  the  light,  with  a  tender  heart,  a  vacillating  purpose, 

comprehensive  vision,  and  a  paralyzed  will. 

And  Hamlet  is  conscious  of  his  own  defects.  He  is 
forever  analyzing  his  emotions.  He  gazes  into  his  con- 
science and  says:  "Thus  conscience  doth  make  cowards 
of  us  all."  The  engine  works,  but  the  driving  wheel  is 
still.  He  is  never  spontaneous,  exuberant,  healthy.  He 
is  always  self-conscious,  introspective.  moMdT~  Thought 
replaces  action.  He  sees  the  good  in  evil  and  the  evil 
in  good  so  clearly  that  he  makes  no  choice  between  them. 

He  is  a  warning  to  every  man  in  whom  reflection  has 
usurped  duty,  and  who  conceives  that  talking  is  activity. 
Such  men  are  not  rare.  The  real  world,  to  Hamlet,  is 
obscured  by  the  mental  haze  in  which  he  moves.  Indif- 
_ference  leads  to  feeblenessr  feebleness  tn  inability 


inability  to  disaster.     Notice  that  his  continual  declaration  • 

none.     Never  was  the  W^ 


critical  instinct  so  carefully  anoyexactly  developed.  lago 
is  critical,  but  he  has  purpose  JHLaertes  raises  a  mob  and 
destroys  the  security  of  a  palace,  but  Hamlet  only  ponders. 
He  lives  in  the  future  only.  *  He  is  a  great  sceptic  because 
he  has  no  faith  int  himself,  Moreover,  soon  after  he 
sees  his  father's  spirit  he  doubts  immortality.  He  doubts 
even  Horatio,  and  swears  him  to  secrecy  at  the  sword's 
point.  He  doubts  Ophelia  and  asks:  "Are  you  honest?" 
Mr.  J.  R.  Lowell  has  noticed  Hamlet's  irony.  It  is  like 
the  irony  of  Socrates  and  is  the  result  of  his  temperament. 
He  wonders  if  men  are  not  made  in  jest.  He  talks  of 
suicide  but  cannot  kill  himself;  he  refuses  to  kill  the 

49 


SHAKESPEARE    STUDIES 

king  while  praying,  for  fear  his  soul  will  therefore  be 
saved.  He  goes  to  England  for  no  reason  but  removal 
from  a  disagreeable  duty.  Chance  alone  brings  him  to 
his  end.  He  is  a  man  of  genius,  per  se,  and  has  all  the 
eccentricity  of  his  class.  The  philosophical  spirit  in  him 
is  supreme.  He  foresees,  analyzes, 


movement  of  his    enemies,    aTid    this    gives  him  great 
delight. 

"The  time  is  out  of  joint;  O  cursed  spite, 
That  ever  I  was  born  to  set  it  right"  ! 
And  he  goes  no  further  to  set  it  right.  How  many 
Hamlets  there  are  in  morals,  in  politics,  in  business,  in 
religion,  —  perpetually  in  the  bloom  of  critical  conviction, 
ever  budding  caustic  criticism,  sitting  in  judgment  on 
other  men,  yet  lifting  not  so  much  *as  a  hair's  weight  to 
relieve  humanity,  or  to  purge  it  of  its  faults.  Hamlet 
would  have  made  a  good  editor,  or  a  political  declaimer, 
or  a  general  pessimist  at  large.  Salvini  thought  that  in 
Hamlet  the  intellect  completely  took  the  place  of  the  will. 

Was  Hamlet's  madness  real  or  assumed?  Polonius, 
a  shrewd  observer,  says:  "Tho  this  be  madness,  yet 
there's  method  in't."  One  thing  is  certain:  if  Hamlet 
is  irresponsible  the  whole  play  is  a  farce.  Gervinus 
thinks  that  his  madness  was  feigned.  If  he  was  mad, 
then  he  and  three-fourths  of  men  are  alike.  Taine  says 
that,  "the  hinges  of  his  mind  .were  twisted,  not  broken." 
We  must  confess  that  he  acts  his  part  well,  for  he 
deceives  even  his  examiners  by  telling  them  unwelcome 
facts.  Edgar,  in  King  Lear,  pretended  insanity,  and  so 
did  Hamlet,  says  Lowell.  If  so,  this  course  permitted 
him  to  drift  along  in  the  channel  of  his  inactivity,  and 
shows  the  profound  subtlety  of  his  mind. 

Edwin  Booth  believed  Hamlet  fitfully  insane,  that  this 
was  his  recurring  cloud,  allowing  him  the  clearest  and 

50 


HAMLET 

loveliest  vision,  only  to  be  followed  by  the  most  melan- 
choly depression.  Granting  this,  he  is  a  type  of  thou- 
sands, for  Voltaire  tells  us  that  "insane  asylums  were 
designed  to  prove  the  rest  of  the  world  sane."  Hamlet 
said  to  the  Queen,  ''Essentially  I  am  not  in  madness,  but 
mad  in  craft."  Thus  the  character  baffles  us  at  every 
turn.  But  surely  the  gEfiat-sekfrgiiy  was  nn?rH  in  n 
sane^  moment,  else  the  play  is  bedlam  and  has  no  force. 
Hamlet  walks  the  borderland  of  Dryden : 

"Great  wit  to  madness  sure  is  near  allied, 
And  thin  partitions  do  their  bounds  divide." 

Hamlet  lies  close  to  Shakespeare's  heart.  It  gives  us 
the  dramatist's  view  of  the  stage,  of  life,  of  men,  as  does 
no  other  of  his  plays.  No  play  is  so  often  quoted,  and 
none  has  so  universally  affected  mankind.  To  select  any 
one  line  is  like  selecting  one  rose  from  a  thousand.  It 
is  the  tragedy  of  thought.  No  commentator  on  this  play, 
among  the  hundreds  who  have  written,  has  risen  to  its 
true  level.  Perhaps  if  one  had  we  should  have  had  a 
second  Shakespeare.  Hamlet  was  produced  when  the 
master  had  passed  the  day-dreams  of  life,  and  was  musing 
on  its  perplexities  and  sorrows.  It  is  not  golden  but  dark. 

The  French  have  never  understood  it.  The  Germans 
have  most  deeply  appreciated  it.  Not  until  Coleridge 
threw  upon  it  the  searchlight  of  his  genius,  did  the  English 
rise  to  its  true  worth.  If  Lear  teaches  the  differenc 
between  justice  and  generosity;  if  Macbeth  shows  the 
eternal  Nemesis  that  follows  secret  sin;  if  Othello  reveals 
the  abyss  into  which  jealousy  may  plunge  a  noble  mind;— 
then  Hamlet,  Shakespeare's  masterpiece,  teaches  men  that 
sands  no  more  surely  glide  through  a  glass,  than  the 
best  intentions  through  a  paralyzed  purpose, 
cem^urjesjpass  he  sounds  to  them  the  janger  of  d^fayr  — - 

Si 


SHAKESPEARE     STUDIES 

If  Hamlet  is  the  consummate  flower  of  the  world's 
greatest  mind,  it  is  as  truly  the  perfection  of  the  actor's 
art.  In  the  seventeenth  century,  Thomas  Betterton, 
when  acting  Hamlet,  turned  from  a  ruddy  hue  to  unnat- 
ural white,  and  made  his  audience  shudder  in  their  seats 
on  seeing  the  Ghost.  Talma,  in  Paris,  was  so  vivid  in 
his  delineation  of  the  character  that  women  fainted  and 
screamed.  Robert  Wilkes,  David  Garrick,  John  Kemble, 
Edmund  Kean,  Tommaso  Salvini,  these  were  all  great 
representatives  of  Hamlet. 

But  it  was  reserved  for  our  own  land  and  time  to 
witness  an  impersonation  of  the  character  that  has  never 
been  surpassed.  In  all  the  elements  of  intellect,  fancy, 
grandeur,  tenderness,  mystery,  delirium  and  grace,  the 
Hamlet  of  Edwin  Booth  was  the  very  crown  of  that  great 
actor's  art.  Sustained  power,  marvellous  variety,  match- 
less eloquence,  facial  play,  spontaneous  delivery,  refined 
gasticulation,  all  combined  to  form  an  impression  that 
once  seen  could  never  be  effaced.  The  poetic  imagina- 
tion, the  reflective  mind,  and  the  melancholy  temperament 
of  the  Dane,  precisely  fitted  Booth's  genius,  and  he  gave 
it  an  individuality  quite  his  own.  His  exquisite  ten- 
derness to  Ophelia;  his  weird  meeting  with  the  Ghost; 
his  quiet  study  of  the  king's  face  in  the  play ;  his  unriv- 
alled rendering  of  the  soliloquies;  his  manly  love  for 
Horatio, — these  were  and  will  ever  remain  the  priceless 
glory  of  the  American  stage. 

Booth  was  Hamlet.  He  revealed  its  spiritualized  intel- 
lect, its  feminine  softness,  its  autumnal  gloom,  perhaps 
more  than  any  man  before  him.  There  was  a  pathetic 
emotion,  an  awful  reality,  a  poignant  suffering,  and,  above 
all,  an  indefinable  dreaminess  that  charmed  while  it  sub- 
dued. There  was  no  bald  realism,  no  spectacular  frenzy, 
no  gaudy  glitter,  about  it;  it  was  the  portrayal  of  a 

52 


HAMLET 

great  mystery,  spiritualized,  illumined,  inspired,  and  shot 
through  and  through  with  rare  sentiment  that  played 
upon  the  text  like  light  upon  the  lawn.  There  were  flashes 
of  great  energy,  when  the  hearers  sat  transfixed  with 
terror;  there  were  silvery  notes  of  sadness,  that  melted 
men  to  tears ;  there  were  passages  of  awful  power,  when 
the  audience  were  amazed :  and  there  were  colossal  explo- 
sions, when  the  whole  house  rose  and  cheered.  You  felt 
that  Booth's  spirit  was  a  mirror  that  reflected  every 
varying  mood  of  Hamlet's  complex  personality,  and  that 
when  you  saw  him  you  saw  the  very  character  itself. 
From  the  first,  his  imagination  was  haunted,  the  Ghost 
scene  transfigured  him  into  horrible  suspense,  his  cry  on 
killing  Polonius  froze  the  soul,  and  the  desolate  calm  as 
he  stood  over  Ophelia's  grave  was  beyond  all  imitation 
or  description.  It  fascinated  all  men  everywhere,  and 
once  ran  one  hundred  nights  successively  with  an  interest 
that  never  flagged.  To  all  who  have  seen  this  immortal 
representation,  each  subsequent  Hamlet  fades  from  the 
eyes,  and  the  great  American  tragedian  walks  the  stage 
once  more. 


EDWIN  BOOTH 

I  cannot  forbear,  in  closing,  to  present  a  few  words 
of  tribute  to  the  man  who  did  more  than  any  other  to 
elevate,  and  purify,  and  adorn  the  American  stage.  Pri- 
marily a  gentleman,  his  appearance  is  deeply  engraven 
on  the  memories  of  all  who  were  so  fortunate  as  to  see 
and  know  him.  Of  incomparable  grace,  with  a  voice  like 
a  silver  bell,  he  had  a  high  forehead,  a  wealth  of  waving 
hair,  a  stern  yet  mobile  mouth,  and  eyes  deepset,  hazel, 
expressive  as  diamonds,  now  melting  with  tenderness, 

53 


SHAKESPEARE    STUDIES 

and  now  aglow  with  frenzy ;  while  his  bearing,  dignified, 
Athenian,  and  refined,  swayed  men  as  by  magical  power. 
To  the  very  last,  a  roll  of  those  eyes,or  one  of  his  wonder- 
ful gestures,  evoked  a  peal  of  spontaneous  applause.  He 
had  a  delicate  humor,  a  cheerful  patience,  a  lofty  ideal. 
He  was  stately  yet  not  austere;  dignified  yet  not  cold; 
proud  yet  not  repelling.  He  never  descended  to  the  spec- 
tacular or  the  low.  He  was  generosity  itself.  He  was 
a  very  embodiment  of  honesty.  Grave,  contemplative  and 
sweet,  he  was  as  sensitive  as  a  girl,  and  shunned  all 
compliment  and  applause.  His  artistic  purpose  was 
unswerving,  lofty  and  pure.  Isolated  by  reason  of  his 
somber,  spiritual  temperament,  profoundly  affected  by  his 
brother's  awful  crime,  introspective  and  inheriting  a  tinge 
of  deep  melancholy,  he  possessed  the  dreaminess  of  the 
poet  and  the  contemplation  of  the  philosopher. 

His  devotion  to  his  wife  is  seen  in  all  his  letters,  and 
his  attachment  to  his  friends  is  their  priceless  heritage. 
He  saw,  with  sorrow,  the  decline  in  the  public  taste  that 
now  seems  to  have  reached  a  regretful  culmination,  and 
used  to  say  that  he  "never  gave  the  theater-going  world 
what  it  wished  but  what  it  needed."  For  forty-two 
years  he  fascinated,  instructed,  and  elevated  men,  women 
and  children  by  the  surpassing  power  of  his  great  art, 
and  never  condescended  to  a  single  representation  that 
could  bring  a  blush  to  the  purest  maiden's  cheek. 

He  has  left  no  successor,  and  lies  among  the  great 
dead  in  Mt.  Auburn.  Above  his  grave  the  robins  carol, 
and  on  its  grasses  the  snowflakes  fall.  Yet  the  first  are 
no  sweeter  than  his  voice,  and  the  second  are  no  purer 
than  his  life.  Surely  we  may  say  of  him,  as  Horatio  said 
of  Hamlet:  "Good  night,  sweet  Prince,  and  flights  of 
angels  sing  thee  to  thy  rest." 


54 


AS  YOU  LIKE  IT 

—  BY  — 

F.  HYATT  SMITH 


AS  YOU  LIKE  IT 

IT  is  the  sweetest  and   happiest  of  all  the  comedies,  a 
rest    for   the   imagination,   a   tonic    for   the   heart. 
Founded  on  a  graceful  story,  wit  and  mirth,  song  and 
sense,   philosophy   and    tenderness,    love    and   melan- 
choly, gravity  and  drollery,  absurdity  and  truth,  are  so 
perfectly  blended  and  intermingled,  that  misfortune  is 
lightened,  love  is  heightened,  wisdom  is  deepened,  and 
nature  welcomes  her  tired  children  beneath  the  trees 
and  beside  the  streams. 

The  Forest  of  Arden  covered  much  of  Warwick- 
shire from  the  Avon  northwest  of  Stratford,  one  of 
the  loveliest  landscapes  in  the  world,  with  towering 
trees,  manyhued  flowers,  trembling  breezes,  and  haunt- 
ing fancies  in  nook  and  dell.  With  his  mother's  name 
the  great  alchemist  associated  an  ideal  and  fanciful 
life,  robbed  of  all  conventionality  and  restraint.  We 
breathe  the  blossom-laden  air;  we  lie  on  couches  of 
moss;  under  melancholy  boughs  we  moralize  on  the 
artificialities  of  existence,  the  imagination  becomes 
soft  and  delicate;  the  wit  runs  riot  in  idleness,  caprice 
and  fancy  reign  here ;  the  critical  and  destructive  spirit 
is  banished  from  this  Arcady;  it  is  a  return  to  the 
Promised  Land  from  the  Egypt  of  formalism  and  pre- 
tense. Stern  necessity  flees  away,  the  cares  and  echoes 
of  the  harsh  world  disappear,  the  very  atmosphere 
wakens  philosophic  poetry,  and  "this  our  life,  exempt 
from  public  haunt,  finds  tongues  in  trees,  books  in 
the  running  brooks,  sermons  in  stones,  and  good  in 
everything." 

We  have  thus  a  poetic  pastoral,  an  enchanting 
masque,  lions  are  introduced  from  France  and  serpents 
and  palm  trees  are  added.  Fantastic  imagery  casts 

57 


f 


SHAKESPEARE    STUDIES 

over  the  whole  a  robe  of  iridescent  beauty.  The  inten- 
tion of  the  comedy  is  to  extol  self-mastery  and  equani- 
mity and  self-command.  Town  life  is  contrasted  with 
rural  abandon.  We  are  led  into  the  country  of  con- 
tentment where  our  anxieties  drop  from  us  like 
needles  from  the  scented  pine.  We  are  solicited  to  a 
return  to  nature.  It  is  the  joy  of  childhood,  the  fresh 
delight  of  innocence,  the  sport  of  frolicsome  lambs. 
Here  too  is  love,  in  its  many  phases,  and  humor,  natu- 
ral and  professional  and  morbid.  There  are  gleams  of 
the  simplest  humanity  and  of  the  profoundest  philoso- 
phy. No  play  more  appeals  to  our  primal  instincts 
and  none  more  to  our  better  impulses. 

Through  the  treachery  and  violence  of  a  brother, 
a  noble  and  generous  prince  has  been  driven  into  exile. 
Friendship,  stronger  than  blood,  induces  several  of 
his  subjects  to  share  his  banishment.  From  the  soli- 
tude of  society  they  escape  into  the  solitude  of  nature. 
The  daughter  of  the  prince  is  also  driven  forth  to  the 
vicinity  of  her*  father.  Her  cousin,  the  usurper's 
daughter,  accompanies  her,  drawn  by  a  sisterly  devo- 
tion. They  persuade  a  witty  court  fool  to  be  their 
companion.  A  shepardess,  a  country  wench,  two  ser- 
vants, and  three  young  men,  complete  the  society 
of  Robin  Hood's  land.  We  have  love  and  disguise  in 
Rosalind  and  Orlando,  love  and  folly  in  Audrey  and 
Touchstone,  and  love  conventional  in  Phebe  and 
Silvius.  There  is  the  natural  humor  of  Rosalind,  the 
professional  humor  of  Touchstone,  and  the  morbid 
humor  of  Jacques. 

(  Tke^  old_JDukeJFrederick  is  a  man  of  harsh  and 
illiberal  mind,  destitute  of  the  finer  instincts,  and  a 
real  robber  of  his  brother's  property;  he  suspects  all 
good  men,  he  is  jealous,  hasty,  bitter  and  designing. 

58 


AS    YOU    LIKE    IT 

The  banished  Duke  converts  exile  into  repose,  he 
rises  above  all  discomforts,  he  is  cheerfulness  in  mis- 
fortune, he  thinks  these  woods  "more  free  from  peril 
than  the  envious  court";  "these  are  councillors  that 
feelingly  persuade  me  what  I  am";  "sweet  are  the  uses 
of  adversity,  which  like  the  toad,  ugly  and  venomous, 
wears  yet  a  precious  jewel  in  his  head",  an  allusion  to 
the  old  tradition  that  the  toad  was  a  remedy  for 
disease,  with  its  imagined  gem  set  between  its  eyes. 

He  thinks  Jacques  nowhere  like  a  man;  he  pene- 
trates his  sly  humor  with  "what  fool  is  this",  he  tells 
him  of  his  former  life,  he  memorizes  on  their  former 
better  days  when  with  "holy  bell  they  were  knelled  to 
church  and  sat  at  good  men's  feasts,  and  wiped  their 
eyes  of  drops  that  sacred  pity  engendered" ;  yet  he 
asks  all  the  sylvan  company  to  sit  down  in  gentleness 
and  take  their  food" ;  he  is  a  humane  man  and  notes 
that  "this  wide  and  universal  theatre  presents  more 
woeful  pageants  than  the  scene  wherein  we  play  in". 
He  solicits  music  from  Amiens  who  answers,  "Blow, 
blow,  thou  wintry  wind,  thou  art  not  so  unkind,  as 
man's  ingratitude;  thy  tooth  is  not  so  keen,  because  / 
thou  art  not  seen,  although  thy  breath  be  rude". 
"Freeze,  freeze,  thou  winter  sky,  that  dost  not  bite  so 
nigh,  as  benefits  forgot ;  though  thou  the  waters  warp, 
thy  sting  is  not  so  sharp,  as  friend  remembered  not". 
This  is  the  finest  verse  in  the  world  on  the  pangs  of 
broken  attachment  and  the  hollowness  of  human  devo- 
tion. Who  has  not  repeated  them  when  deceived  and 
neglected  and  forgotten?  They  recall  the  sorrowful 
lines  in  Lear. 

He  pierces  through  Touchstone's  folly  and  uncovers 
all  his  wit.  And  at  the  very  close,  when  his  fortunes 
are  returned  to  him,  with  what  dignity  and  modera- 

59 


SHAKESPEARE    STUDIES 

tion  he  offers  to  share  all  his  unexpected  gain  among 
the  companions  of  his  enforced  exile!  And  all  closes 
with  a  rustic  dance. 

Here  is  Shakespeare's  picture  of  the  man  whom  no 
reverses  can  subdue,  no  sorrows  embitter;  whose 
humanity  rises  with  his  own  loss,  whose  inborn  gentle- 
ness conquers  every  obstacle, — a  grand  portrai^of  the 
superiority  of  character  over  possessions  and  of  soul 
over  title,  a  perpetual  lesson  of  stability,  endurance, 
dignity,  manliness,  and  truth.  Stripped  of  his  rightful 
estate,  banished  to  the  wilderness,  his  real  wealth  he 
finds  in  himself,  the  cover  of  heaven  is  sweeter  than 
his  palace  roof ;  losing  his  domain  he  finds  it  within ; 
his  mind  makes  its  own  world,  and  he  proves  that  the 
intellectual  man  furnishes  his  own  surroundings  and 
can  never  be  depleted  of  the  best. 

Orlando  is  a  young  gentleman,  brave,  modest  and 
magnanimous ;  his  only  thought  of  his  ancestry  is  never 
to  dishonor  it;  he  a  sort  of  Horatio  in  adversity;  the 
very  highest  type  of  friend ;  never  schooled  but 
learned ;  his  humblest  servant  is  his  highest  eulogist ; 
he  tilts  with  Jaques  in  wit ;  he  is  as  wise  as  humorous ; 
trained  like  a  peasant  by  his  brother  and_treated  like 
a  slave,jretjn  angerjie_is-jn aster  of  himself,  he  defends 
his  old  retainer  with  the  sword ;  he  is  always  self-con- 
tained, healthy,  a  perfectly  balanced  man.  He  thinks 
little  of  himself.  Concerning  his  possible  death  in  the 
wrestling  match,  he  says:  "I  shall  do  my  friends  no  wrong 
for  I  have  none  to  lament  me ;  the  world  no  injury  for  in 
it  I  have  nothing;  only  in  the  world  I  fill  up  a  place 
which  may  be  better  supplied  when  I  have  made  it 
empty".  The  sight  of  Rosalind  entrances  him,  his  love 
developes,  he  hangs  his  ditty  to  her  upon  the  tree ; 
"Oh  Rosalind!  these  trees  shall  be  my  books,  and  in 

60 


AS     YOU    LIKE    IT 

their  barks  my  thoughts  I'll  character,  that  every  eye 
which  in  this  forest  looks  shall  see  thy  virtues  wit- 
nessed everywhere ;  Run,  run  Orlando,  carve  on  every 
tree,  the  fair,  the  chaste,  the  unexpressive  she." 

"Her  stature,"  he  says,  "is  just  as  high  as  my  heart"; 
he  tells  her  there  is  no  clock  in  the  forest;  he  tells  her 
again  that  he  is  loveshaked  and  asks  her  the  remedy; 
he  admits  to  the  disguised  girl  that  he  wrote  the  verses 
on  the  tree ;  neither  rhyme  nor  reason  can  express  his 
love;  he  would  have  her  cure  it  by  counsel  and  when 
she  tells  him  she  would  cure  him  if  he  would  but  call 
her  Rosalind,  and  come  every  day  to  woo  her,  he  re- 
plies, "tell  me  where  you  live." 

The  love  scene  in  Act  IV  is  delicious,  natural,  a 
model  for  novelists,  without  strain  or  stilt  or  conven- 
tion. When  Celia  marries  them  in  fun,  and  he  repeats 
the  formula  after  her,  it  is  the  sweetest  bit  in  all 
Shakespeare,  with  a  forest  for  a  church,  and  flowers  for 
wedding  bells,  and  a  witty  woman  for  a  priest.  Then 
the  real  marriage  with  Hymen's  hymn,  "you  and  you 
are  sure  together,  as  the  winter  to  foul  weather," ;  and 
the  song,  "wedding  is  great  Juno's  crown," — and  the 
felicity  is  consummated. 

Rosalind  is  a  delightful  blending  of  subtle  womanly 
traits,  defying  analysis,  like  the  rainbow.  She  breathes 
of  youth  and  youths'  sweet  prime.  She  is  as  witty 
as  Beatrice,  but  her  wit  bubbles  like  a  fountain.  It 
is  the  carol  of  a  bird.  Tenderness  and  mirth  exquisite- 
ly interplay  in  her,  and  she  is  affection,  raillery,  teas- 
ing vivacity,  sauciness,  audacity,  impatience,  fondness, 
propriety,  grace,  and  abandon,  in  turns.  She  has  all  the 
swift  changes  of  an  April  day.  We  think  of  her  "a 
gallant  curtleaxe  upon  her  thigh,  a  boar  spear  in  her 
hand";— she  has  not  the  sober  eloquence  of  Portia, 

61 


SHAKESPEARE     STUDIES 

nor  the  demure  wisdom  of  Isabella;  her  shortest  talks 
are  her  best;  yet  she  is  both  volatile  and  voluble, — 
like  Keat's  Madeline,  "to  her  heart  her  heart  was 
voluble,  paining  with  eloquence  her  balmy  side." 

She  is  a  strange,  queer,  lovely  creature, — a  beautiful 
romantic  animal ;  she  briskly  springs  and  runs  and 
leaps;  she  plays  lightly  over  all  things  with  her  deli- 
cate wit;  it  is  irrepressible  and  gushes  like  a  brook  in 
the  glade;  it  catches  force  from  the  clouds  and  is  a 
compact  of  maidenly  fancy  and  cheerfulness ;  even  in 
her  tears  an  arch  of  playfulness  spans  that  perfect 
mouth.  No  trial  can  break  her  spirits,  no  storm  can 
chill  her  enthusiasm ;  she  is  perfect  composure ;  the 
contradiction  between  her  assumed  dress  and  her 
sex  but  heightens  her  attractiveness.  Her  part  is 
played  with  infinite  zest.  She  roams  the  forest  like 
some  wood  nymph.  Nor  is  she  in  any  degree  mannish 
or  prudish. 

She  is  a  lovely  girl,  freed  from  the  conventions  of 
the  court,  liberated  into  nature's  wide  domain  and  un- 
fettered from  all  restraint,  yet  still  a  woman  with  a 
woman's  sense  of  propriety  and  truth.  We  cannot 
imagine  her  wearing  Portia's  sedate  air,  or  Hermione's 
matronly  gravity,  or  Cordelia's  solicitude  for  the  sorrow- 
ing. Her  freedoms  of  speech  are  the  rarest  proofs  of 
her  delicacy;  she  hazards  just  enough  to  conceal 
her  real  personality.  Her  modesty  speaks  more  freely 
than  it  feels,  as  false  modesty  feels  more  freely  than 
it  speaks.  She  is  love  in  disguise  forevermore,  a 
mountain  zephyr,  a  swaying  shadow  in  the  sun.  She 
would  be  out  of  place  in  a  city  mansion,  the  woods  are 
her  natural  setting.  Fortune  robbed  her  of  her  wealth, 
and  when  she  finds  in  Orlando  one  struck  by  the  same 
fate,  her  heart  is  taken  unawares  and  yields.  She 

62 


AS    YOU    LIKE    IT 

vanquishes  him  before  he  conquers  her.  Her  friend- 
ship with  Celia  is  a  perfect  pastoral.  This  it  is  which 
brings  forth  her  native  cheerfulness  under  every  stress. 
She  is  too  impulsive  for  deep  reflection,  she  is  too 
adroit  for  delay,  she  masters  her  passion  by  giving 
rein  to  her  mind  and  imagination.  Thus  she  shields 
herself  from  all  melancholy  and  preserves  a  due  de- 
corum. Her  laugh  is  wholly  unlike  that  of  any  other 
of  Shakespeare's  heroines,  silvery,  tinkling,  teasing, 
taunting.  She  is  his  most  enchanting  coquette.  She 
could  not  be  merry,  however,  until  she  had  joined  her 
banished  father.  She  can  rejoice  in  Celia's  greater 
fortune,  proving  her  total  unselfishness.  Orlando  was 
the  son  of  her  father's  friend  and  this  cements  their 
attraction. 

How  dashing  is  the  picture  of  the  splendid  girl  who 
would  have  a  "swashing  and  a  martial  outside",  to  be 
called  Ganymede  in  the  forest,  going  in  content  to 
liberty  and  not  to  banishment,  true  as  a  star  to  her 
cousin,  defying  all  that  may  await  her  in  the  free  and 
untried  life !  She  slyly  hints  that  she  must  comfort 
the  weaker  vessel,  as  "doublet  and  hose  ought  to  show 
itself  courageous  to  petticoats."  She  seeks  refresh- 
ment for  Celia  in  the  shepherds'  hut  and  buys  the  hut 
for  a  place  of  refuge.  Can  you  not  see  her  reading, 
"From  the  east  to  western  Ind,  no  jewel  is  like  Rosa- 
lind; her  worth  being  mounted  on  the  wind,  through 
all  the  world  bears  Rosalind;  all  the  pictures  fairest 
lin'd  are  but  black  to  Rosalind" ! 

The  whole  wilderness  suddenly  becomes  a  library. 

verses    on    every   tree.      And    she   knows   the    laws   of 

"pSeffy""  too — "for   some   of   the   verses    had    in   them 

more  feet  than  the  verses  would  bear".     She  cries; 

"Is  he  of  God's  making?    What  manner  of  man?    Is 

63 


SHAKESPEARE     STUDIES 

his  head  worth  a  hat,  or  his  chin  worth  a  beard?" 
Learning  that  her  love  poet  was  Orlando,  she  quickly 
inquired;  "What  said  he?  How  looked  he?  Did  he 
ask  for  me?  Where  remains  he?  Answer  me  in  one 
word".  Cold  and  unconcerned  at  first  she  becomes  a 
torrent  of  curious  solicitude  in  an  instant.  She  tells 
Celia  that  when  a  woman  thinks  she  must  speak. 
"Time  trots  hard,"  she  says,  "with  a  young  maid 
between  the  contract  of  her  marriage  and  the  day  it 
is  solemnized;  time  ambles  with  a  priest  that  lacfcs 
Latin,  and  a  rich  man  that  hath  not  the  gout;  and  he 
gallops  with  a  thief  to  the  gallows;  and  he  stays  still 
with  lawyers  in  the  vacation".  How  delicious  is  this! 
She  says  to  the  wondering  Orlando  that  she  dwells 
with  her  sister  the  shepherdess  in  the  skirts  of  the 
forest  "like  a  fringe  upon  a  petticoat".  And  this  rol- 
licksome  and  teasing  girl  "thanks  God  she  is  not  a 
woman,  to  be  touched  with  so  many  giddy  offences  as 
he  hath  generally  taxed  their  whole  sex  withal" !  And 
then  those  marks  of  love,  where  are  they  equalled? 
"A  lean  cheek,  a  blue  eye  and  sunken,  an  unquestion- 
able spirit,  a  beard  neglected,  hose  ungartered,  bonnet 
unhanded,  sleeve  unbuttoned,  and  everything  about 
you,"  she  says  to  the  wondering  swain,  "demonstrating 
a  careless  desolation,"  "But  are  you  he  who  hangs 
verses  on  the  trees  wherein  Rosalind  is  so  admired?" 
"Love  is  merely  a  madness,  yet  I  profess  to  cure  it  by 
counsel."  "Did  you  ever  cure  any  so?"  "Yes,  one,  and  in 
this  manner.  He  was  to  imagine  me  his  love,  his  mis- 
tress,— and  I  set  him  every  day  to  woo  me;  at  which 
time  would  I,  being  but  a  moonish  youth,  grieve,  be 
effeminate,  longing  and  liking,  proud,  fantastical, 
apish,  shallow,  inconsistent,  full  of  tears,  full  of  smiles, 
— would  now  like  him,  now  loathe  him ;  then  entertain 

64 


AS    YOU    LIKE    IT 

him,  then  forswear  him ;  now  weep  for  him,  then  spit 
at  him;  and  thus  I  cured  him"!  "I  would  cure  you, 
if  you  would  but  call  me  Rosalind,  and  come  every  day 
to  my  cote  and  woo  me" !  'The  oath  of  a  lover,"  she 
tells  Celia,  "is  no  stronger  than  the  word  of  a  tap- 
ster." 

She  tells  Jaques  that  she  would  rather  "have  a  fool 
to  make  her  merry  than  experience  to  make  her  sad." 
She  dismisses  the  amazed  Orlando  saying,  "I'd  as  lief 
be  wooed  of  a  snail,  for  though  he  comes  slowly  he 
carries  his  house  on  his  head", — besides  "he  brings  his 
destiny  with  him".  Then — "come  woo  me,  woo  me, 
for  now  I  am  in  a  holiday  humor  and  like 
enough  to  consent."  When  he  threatens  to  kill  him- 
self, the  saucy  enchantress  replies;  "Men  have  died 
from  time  to  time,  and  worms  have  eaten  them,  but 
not  for  love" !  She  tells  him  how  to  begin  the  mock 
marriage  ceremony  beneath  the  trees;  and  when  she 
anticipates  the  disguised  priest,  coyly  says;  "there's  a 
girl  goes  before  the  priest,  and  certainly  a  woman's 
thought  runs  before  her  actions."  "Make  the  jdoors 
upon  a  woman's  wit  and  it  will  out  at  the  casement; 
shut  that,  and  'twill  out  at  the  keyhole;  stop  that, 
'twill  fly  with  the  smoke  out  at  the  chimney".  Once 
she  sums  up  the  whole  tender  transaction;  "for  your 
brother  and  sister  no  sooner  met  but  they  looked,  no 
sooner  looked  but  they  loved,  no  sooner  loved  but  they 
sighed,  no  sooner  sighed  but  they  asked  one  another 
the  reason,  no  sooner  knew  the  reason  but  they 
sought  the  remedy;  they  are  in  the  very  wrath  of 
love;  clubs  cannot  part  them." 

In  the  Epilogue,  this  inimitable  creature  says  that  her 
way  is  "to  conjure  and  not  to  beg."  This  is  the  key  to 
her  character,  for  she  is  a  dainty,  deft,  tantalizing 

65 


SHAKESPEARE     STUDIES 

enchantress,  vivacious  and  sprightly,  coming  and  going 
like  a  dream,  provoking  and  rebuking,  always  self-pos- 
sessed, never  caustic,  playful  as  a  kitten,  dazzling  and 
alarming,  pouring  forth  her  ceaseless  raillery  like  a  bird, 
fluttering  over  every  subject,  saucy  as  a  page,  wise  as  a 
statesman,  with  a  profound  knowledge  of  all  the  intrica- 
cies of  the  heart,  and  yet  steadied  and  sobered  by  a 
womanly  conviction  and  reserve  that  redeem  her  nature 
and  enhance  its  beauty. 

The  melancholy  Jaques!  We  all  know  him.  He  is 
wholly  unique  and  individual.  A  song  carries  him  out  of 
his  senses ;  the  fool  convulses  him ;  he  has  neither  hatred 
nor  love,  all  things  suggest  melancholy  to  him;  he  loves 
himself  too  well  to  hate  anybody,  among  the  cheerful 
cheerless  only  he.  Happy  faces  but  whet  his  philosophic 
meditation;  he  mistakes  his  own  self-love  for  compas- 
sion, and  his  pity  does  not  include  its  object.  The 
sufferings  of  others  but  open  the  fountains  of  his  easy 
tears,  he  would  inflict  pain  to  weep  over  it,  he  has  been 
a  libertine  and  now  pensively  stands  aloof  from  the 
world;  he  is  the  sauce  of  the  entire  pudding.  His  irony 
is  tempered  with  good-nature  and  he  is  a  pure  senti- 
mentalist. 

His  melancholy  is  not  earnest,  but  assumed ;  "a  melan- 
choly," he  says,  "of  mine  own,  compounded  of  many 
simples,  extracted  from  many  objects," — he  is  a  puzzle 
to  the  Duke  and  a  challenge  to  Rosalind;  he  was  the 
forerunner  of  Lawrence  Sterne.  His  entire  life  is 
unsubstantial  and  a  mockery,  he  thinks  he  can  banish  all 
reality,  he  was  born  a  hypochondriac,  all  things  dis- 
content him,  he  knows  the  shadow  side  of  every  age  and 
temperament,  and  censures  all  he  sees. 

He  is  without  patience  in  a  life  of  contemplation,  was 
never  fitted  for  activity,  never  learned  self  mastery,  he 

66 


AS    YOU    LIKE    IT 

can  "suck  melancholy  out  of  a  song  as  a  weasel  sucks 
eggs,"  "from  hour  to  hour  we  ripe  and  rot,  and  thereby 
hangs  a  tale."  His  brain  is  as  dry  as  the  remainder 
biscuit  after  a  voyage;  he  sits  down  and  rails  at  the 
misery  of  mankind ;  he  ridicules  marriage,  like  all  of  his 
successors;  he  has  "neither  the  scholar's  melancholy 
which  is  emulation,  nor  the  musician's  which  is  fantas- 
tical, nor  the  courtier's,  which  is  proud,  nor  the  soldier's 
which  is  ambitious,  nor  the  lawyer's  which  is  politic"; 
thus  he  runs  the  gamut  of  pensive  brooding  and  reflects 
every  temperament. 

He  has  given  us  the  unrivalled — "All  the  world's  a 
stage,  and  all  the  men  and  women  merely  players,"  yet 
Shakespeare  for  this  surpassing  paragraph  drew  upon 
Solon  and  a  Jewish  commentator.  Man's  life  was  divided 
into  seven  parts  by  many  earlier  authors;  this  is  the 
summary  of  human  life  from  the  cynic's  standpoint;  duty 
and  religion  are  omitted;  the  end  is  second  childishness 
and  mere  oblivion,  "sans  teeth,  sans  eyes,  sans  taste,  sans 
everything."  For  a  magnificent  refutation  of  Jaques' 
conclusion  read  Hamlet's  "What  a  piece  of  work  is  man !" 

Jaques  has  still  his  thousands  of  counterparts,  young 
men  in  whom  the  springs  of  obligation  and  the  sense  of 
nobility  and  the  longing  for  action  are  obliterated  by  the 
dust  of  indifference  and  criticism  and  scorn ;  to  whom  the 
universe  is  a  glittering  pageant,  a  passing  show,  an  unreal 
panorama.  And  all  such  inevitably  have  Jaques'  mis- 
anthropy, morbidity,  indecision,  and  censure;  they  despise 
love  and  marriage  and  tenderness  and  hope  and  heaven. 

In  Touchstone,  Shakespeare  gives  us  a  fool  wholly 
unlike  his  others.  The  fool  in  All's  Well  That  Ends 
Well  is  a  prophetic  clown.  Those  in  Twelfth  Night 
and  Lear  are  more  expert  and  conscious  of  their  wit. 
Speed  and  Launce  in  The  Two  Gentlemen  of  Verona, 

67 


SHAKESPEARE     STUDIES 

are  a  pair  whose  wit  is  professed  and  studied.  Shakes- 
peare could  laugh.  But  there  are  many  modes  of 
laughter.  Hogarth  has  depicted  a  group  in  the  pit  of  a 
theatre  laughing  at  the  play  on  the  stage.  Each  face 
shows  a  different  emotion.  The  habitual  enjoyer  of 
the  comic  is  abandoned  to  his  mirth  without  stint.  By 
his  side  is  his  female  companion,  fairly  overcome,  tickled 
into  a  climax  of  merriment.  Beyond  sits  one  who  has 
passed  the  culmination  and  wipes  his  eyes.  A  girl  of 
twenty  has  her  vacant  intellect  captured,  and  gazes 
expectantly  for  a  new  sensation.  Near  is  a  man  whose 
half  opened  gaze  and  winking  lid  betoken  reflection  and 
curiosity.  And  a  woman  in  the  distance  laughs  because 
she  is  too  dull  to  know  just  what  excites  her  risibilities. 
And  a  peak  nosed  person  of  refinement  condemns  the 
whole  circle  for  their  vulgarity. 

Thus  the  dramatist  gives  us  the  whole  range  of  humor, 
many-sided,  complete,  temperamental,  —  not  a  shade  is 
missing.  With  Jaques,  he  rails  at  the  world  ;  with  Timon, 
he  turns  against  it;  in  Petruchio,  we  have  the  tempest 
of  high  spirits  ;  in  Romeo  and  Juliet,  the  nurse  lets  loose 
her  wanton  tongue;  in  the  Merry  Wives  of  Windsor, 
Falstaff  reaches  the  very  height  of  pure  humor. 

The  history  of  Shakespeare's  laughter  is  the  history 
of  himself.  At  first  it  is  that  of  a  young  man;  then  it 
is  coalesced  with  fancy;  then  it  is  a  union  of  all  the 
faculties  ;  then  it  is  pathetic  ;  then  it  is  the  joy  of  power  ; 
then  it  becomes  irony;  then  it  is  musical,  and,  finally,  it 
is  tragic  and  terrible.  Touchstone  stands  on  the  edge 
instinct  and  consciousness,  he  is  called  both  "a 
a  fnn1;  et  the  folly  of  others  is  the  source 


of  his  withe  assumes  th^appearanre  of  soun^  wisdom, 
,Jiis  folly  he  calls  his  .«tfa1king  horse.  Sometimes  he  vents 
the  deepest  philosophy.  He  is  a  complex  and  most  .inter- 
esting character. 

68 


AS    YOU    LIKE    IT 

In  Phoebe  and  Silvius,  we  have  the  rustic  love  of  the 
shepherds,  far  beneath  the  intellectual  amorousness  of 
Rosalind  and  Orlando.  Audrey  is  a  coarse  creature  of 
the  woods,  in  love  with  William,  the  country  fellow, — 
thus  there  are  three  pairs  of  lovers :  Jjie^LCfifinedf  the 
rustic,  and  the  low.  Where  else  could  you  find  such 
subtle  delineation?  And  in  old  Adam,  we  have  the  per- 
fect servant,  serving  two  generations,  devoted  to  both 
father  and  son,  giving  of  his  earnings  to  his  master, 
whose  age  is  as  a  lusty  winter,  frosty  yet  kindly, — and 
who  is  sure  of  that  "He  that  doth  the  ravens  feed  and 
providently  caters  for  the  sparrow,  will  comfort  his 
declining  years."  Well  does  Orlando  tell  him,  "Thou 
art  not  for  the  fashion  of  these  times,  where  none  will 
sweat  but  for  promotion,  and  having  that,  do  choke  their 
service  up,  even  with  the  having." 

Celia  is  Rosalind's  opposite;  this  shows  Shakespeare's 
genius  in  contrast, — more  quiet  and  retired,  she  yields 
to  her,  is  less  witty,  and  more  unobtrusive,  yet  full  of 
intelligence  and  sweetness,  she  disdains  all  envy  and 
jealousy,  is  a  Horatio  to  Rosalind's  Hamlet.  She  is 
always  striking  and  animated,  she  tells  us  that  she  and 
Rosalind  have  slept  together,  rose  at  an  instant,  learned, 
played,  eat  together,  and  wheresoer  we  went,  like  Juno's 
swans,  still  we  were  coupled  and  inseparable.  It  is  a 
splendid  study  in  female  friendship.  Her  love  for  Oliver 
was  love  at  first  sight,  it  needed  no  fires,  it  refused  all 
raillery  and  banter,  it  was  artless  and  complete.  She 
thinks  tears  do  not  become  a  man,  that  kisses  are  Judas' 
children,  that  men  only  swear  love  because  there  is  no 
truth  in  them,  and  that  to  say  "aye"  and  "no"  to  all  Rosa- 
lind's questions  is  more  than  to  answer  in  a  catechism. 

As  You  Like  It  is  the  comedy  of  romantic  life. 
Scarcely  any  other  play  is  more  often  quoted.  We  are 

69 


SHAKESPEARE    STUDIES 

in  the  wide  world  of  nature,  and  cry  with  Emerson, 
"Good-bye,  proud  world,  I'm  going  home!"  Giant  oaks 
with  their  umbrageous  foliage ;  purling  brooks  lulling  to 
measureless  content;  the  stag  with  his  horns;  the 
wounded  hart;  the  quiet  hut  thatched  with  straw;  the 
pillow  of  flowers ;  the  roaming  sheep ;  the  green  pastures  ; 
Amiens  under  the  greenwood  tree;  the  sportive  winds; 
Jaques  watching  his  face  in  the  silver  stream ;  the  long 
velvet  sward;  the  plants  and  hawthornes;  the  osiers  by 
the  river;  the  spring  time  and  chorus  of  birds; — these 
lure  us  all  from  the  city's  noise  and  contention  and 
untruth  into  that  "cathedral  boundless  as  our  wonder, 
whose  quenchless  lamps  the  sun  and  moon  supply;  its 
choir  the  winds,  its  organ  thunder,  its  dome  the  sky". 
"When  I  am  stretched  beneath  the  pines,  where  the 
evening  star  so  holy  shines,  I  laugh  at  the  lore  and  pride 
of  man,  at  the  sophist  school  and  the  learned  clan;  for 
what  are  they  all  in  their  high  conceit,  when  man  in 
the  bush  with  God  may  meet?" 

It  is  the  function  of  this  great  pastoral  to  recall  the 
primary  joy  in  nature,  the  fresh  incentive  to  meditation, 
the  glory  of  flower  and  leaf  and  piney  bough. 

"The  world  is  too  much  with  us,  late  and  soon 
Getting  and  spending  we  lay  waste  our  powers ; 
Little  we  see  in  nature  that  is  ours ; 
We  have  given  our  hearts  away,  a  sordid  boon ! 
The  sea  that  bares  her  bosom  to  the  moon, 
The  winds  that  will  be  howling  at  all  hours, 
And  are  upgathered  now  like  sleeping  flowers — 
For  these,  for  everything,  we  are  out  of  tune ; 
It  moves  us  not — great  God !  I  'd  rather  be  a  Pagan 
Suckled  in  a  creed  outworn ;  so  might  I, 
Standing  on  this  pleasant  lea, 
Have  glimpses  that  would  make  me  less  forlorn ; 
Have  sight  of  Proteus  rising  from  the  sea. 
Or  hear  old  Triton  blow  his  weathered  horn." 

70 


KING  LEAR 

—  BY  - 

F.  HYATT  SMITH 


KING  LEAR 

MACBETH  is  the  most  rapid,  and  Hamlet  is  the 
slowest  of  Shakespeare's  plays.     Lear  is  hurried 
and  long,  it  has  a  barbarous  background,  a  gi- 
gantic setting,  the  whole  play  resembles  a  stormy  night; 
nature  and  humanity  are  in  convulsion.     In  it  Shakes- 
peare rivals- Sophocles,  man  is  the  play  of  the  elements, 
pity  and  terror  alternate.       The  first  intellects  of  the 
world  have  studied  it  in  awe.       Lamb  thought  it  too 
colossal  to  be  acted,  and  indeed  there  have  been  few  who 
could  reproduce  it  effectively. 

The  story  is  an  old  one.  Lear  was  a  ruler  of  ancient 
Britain,  with  three  daughters,  Cordelia  and  Goneril  and 
Regan ;  he  called  all  before  him  and  asked  how  well  they 
loved  him ;  the  first  two  answered  hypocritically,  pledging 
what  they  did  not  feel.  Cordelia,  last  and  youngest  and 
best  beloved,  was  too  sincere  and  womanly  to  bribe  him  by 
false  professions.  She  refuses  to  say  what  was  not  in  her 
heart,  her  natural  reserve  becomes  her  fatal  snare,  she  will 
only  love  him  as  a  natural  father,  and  the  blinded  man, 
stung  to  rage  and  dominated  by  passion,  divided  his  king- 
dom between  the  false  sisters  and  cut  off  the  child  who, 
when  all  others  had  betrayed  and  deserted  him,  took  him 
to  her  heart,  a  broken  and  demented  monarch,  falling  like 
an  oak  in  the  forest. 

It  is  the  great  tragedy  of  ingratitude.  In  it  Shakes- 
peare surpasses  himself.  The  play  was  first  published  in 
1608.  From  the  references  to  the  eclipse  of  the  sun  we 
judge  that  it  was  written  in  1605.  Sir  Philip  Sidney,  in 
his  Arcadia,  had  employed  the  same  plot  which  Shakes- 
peare illuminated  by  his  genius.  That  the  effect  might 
not  be  insupportable,  the  dramatist  introduced  a  second- 
ary plot,  and  we  have  Gloster  and  his  sons  Edgar  and 

73 


SHAKESPEARE    STUDIES 

Edmund;  by  Edmund  he  is  tortured  and  wronged  and 
by  Edgar  he  is  tended  and  supported.  The  under  plot 
alone  would  have  made  a  tragedy,  but  here  it  relieves  the 
awful  blackness  of  the  main  action. 

Edmund  is  a^  minor  lago,  destitute  of  feeling,  a  monster 
of  vindictiveness ;  his  knowledge  of  his  shameless  birth 
rankles  in  his  soul.  Edgar  assumes  madness  to  be  the 
companion  of  the  outcast  king.  He  is  light  as  his  brother 
is  darkness.  Kent  is  incarnate  devotion  to  truth  and  duty. 
He  is  one  of  Shakespeare's  noblest  men.  Cornwall,  a 
coward,  is  a  fit  mate  for  Regan,  and  is  finally  killed  by  a 
servant,  to  our  relief.  Goneril  married  Edmund  and  the 
union  was  designed  in  hell.  Oswald  is  a  mere  factor  yet 
at  times  faithful  to  his  trust  Thus  we  have  five  awful 
characters  as  a  background  to^the  main  actors. 

Of  all  Shakespeare's  fools,  the  fool  in  Lear  is  the  most 
wonderful.  He  is  no  comic  buffoon,  no  circus  clown.  His 
wild  babblings  conceal  the  most  weighty  conclusions.  He 
is  an  inspired  idiot,  only  Shakespeare  could  have  drawn 
him,  he  is  half  comic  and  half  serious,  we  take  refuge  in 
his  sallies  when  the  anguish  for  Lear  overpowers  us,  and 
his  devotion  to  Lear  in  all  his  wanderings  touches  the 
heart. 

Goneril  and  Regan  are  furies  in  their  hate,  hags  of  mid- 
night horror,  fiends  destitute  of  kindness,  awful  portrait- 
ures that  even  surpass  Lady  Macbeth  in  bald  villainy  and 
cunning.  The  imagination  shudders  to  admit  that  such 
creatures  may  exist  among  women.  Yet  have  they  not 
their  modern  analogues  ?  Surely  the  inner  history  of  our 
insane  asylums,  where  a  weak  and  helpless  father  is  not 
infrequently  confined  by  his  children,  proves  that  the  filial 
ingratitude  of  one  age  may  reappear  in  another  age  in  a 
different  form. 

74 


KING    LEAR  ^ 

Lear  is  almost  beyond  analysis.  It  is  profanation  to 
touch  him.  He  is  a  ship  driven  by  .the  waves,  a  man  of 
rash  haste  and  furious  passion  and  colossal  pride,  a  giant 
torn  by  feeling,  a  monarch  pushed  forth  by  inhuman 
daughters  into  a  storm  that  harmonizes  with  his  distracted 
mind.  Beneath  all  his  aberrations  is  a  basis  of  fact;  his 
remorse  for  his  petulant  rejection  of  the  faithful  one  in- 
creases with  the  action  of  the  play,  our  compassion  is  ex- 
hausted when  we  see  the  wandering  beggar  exposed  to  the 
pitiless  hail,  his  bodily  and  mental  powers  gone,  a  man 
"more  sinned  against  than  sinning."  Few  can  read  the 
last  act  without  tears ;  when  his  wits  desert  him  he  sees  it, 
some  of  his  speeches  surpass  in  pathos  anything  in  litera- 
ture, his  tender  recognition  of  Cordelia  at  the  last  is  the 
climax  of  sorrow.  HLs  impatience  at  first  produces  his 
misfortunes..  We  see  the  precipice  on  which  he  stands ; 
he  is  pushed  off  and  our  pity  begins.  Blindly  incredulous, 
rashly  importunate,  violently  impetuous,  yet  to  the  last  he 
is  every  inch  a  king. 

And  Cordelia,  where  is  her  counterpart?  She  unites 
the  love  of  truth  and  the  devotion  to  duty,  woman's  high- 
est attributes.  Faithful  daughter  and  wife,  too  modest 
to  proclaim  her  devotion,  she  will  prove  rather  than  pro- 
fess. She  begs  her  sisters  to  treat  her  father  well,  she 
sees  their  vileness  yet  calls  no  names ;  her's  was  a  deep 
and  unfathomable  nature,  of  all  Shakespeare's  heroines 
she  knew  the  least  of  joy.  Her  character  is  too  fine  for 
words,  her  heart  is  a  well  of  unsounded  devotion,  she 
could  not  envy  or  hate  or  blame,  she  appears  in  but  a  few 
scenes  yet  the  result  is  ineffable  and  complete.  She  is 
governed  by  the  loftiest  of  motives,  she  approaches  the 
ideal,  she  must  be  known  to  be  loved  and  love.d  to  be 
known,  she  irradiates  the  blackness  of  the  tragedy  like  the 
sunlight  after  a  storm. 

75 


SHAKESPEARE    STUDIES 

The  subdued  quietness  and  the  veiled  shyness  over  all 
her  emotions  make  her  something  to  be  studied  and  ad- 
mired and  loved ;  her  eloquence  is  silence,  her  voice  is 
characteristic,  ever  soft,  gentle  and  low,  an  excellent 
thing  in  woman.  She  surpasses  Imogen  in  her  sensi- 
bility and  tenderness  and  fortitude  and  magnanimity,  she 
has  more  strength  than  Katherine,  she  has  more  grandeur 
than  Portia,  she  has  more  devotion  than  Hermione ;  the 
intensity  of  her  feeling  is  concealed  beneath  the  dignified 
calmness  of  her  deportment. 

Like  Abdiel  in  the  great  epic,  "among  the  faithless, 
faithful  only  he";  at  the  conclusion  of  the  play  she  re- 
appears a  ministering  angel,  and  passes  from  our  sight  a 
glorified  saint.  Only  the  Antigone  of  Sophocles  is  worthy 
of  comparison  with  her. 

The  motif  and  exposition  are  given  in  the  first  act.  The 
haughty  king  would  divide  his  territory.  Goneril  and 
Regan  express  their  false  devotion  in  lines  that  are  the 
consummation  of  hypocrisy.  Cordelia  will  love  and  be 
silent.  She  cannot  heave  her  heart  into  her  mouth. 
Threatened  with  rejection,  she  will  give  her  father  half  of 
her  love,  reserving  the  other  for  him  who  may  win  her 
hand  and  heart.  Not  even  the  wise  Kent  can  dissuade  the 
infuriated  Lear;  he  disowns  and  curses  her.  Burgundy 
would  marry  Cordelia  for  her  cjowry,  but  France  takes 
her,  for  she  in  herself  is  a  dowry,  most  rich  being  poor. 
Then  follows  the  great  picture  wherein  Gloster  discerns  in 
the  late  commotion  in  the  heavens  the  presage  of  discord 
among  kingdoms  and  families.  Edmund  answers  that 
"we  make  guilty  of  our  disasters  the  sun,  the  moon  and 
the  stars,  as  if  we  were  villains  by  necessity";  here  is 
medieval  astrology  and  its  influence.  Goneril  and  her 
sister  plot  against  their  father,  Kent  declares  he  will  serve 
Lear  in  all  seasons,  and  now  appear  touches  of  Lear's 
coming  insanity. 

76 


KING    LEAR 

The  Fool  gives  the  first  of  his  speeches :  "Have  more 
than  thou  showest,  Speak  more  than  thou  knowest,  Lend 
less  than  thou  owest,  Ride  more  than  thou  goest,  Learn 
more  than  thou  trowest,  Set  less  than  thou  throwest,  and 
thou  shalt  have  more  than  two  tens  to  a  score."  Note 
that  Goneril  cannot  bear  the  mouthings  of  the  Fool,  for 
villainy  never  can  endure  simple  wit.  She  would  send 
the  old  man  forth.  He  utters  an  awful  curse  upon  her. 
"Turn  all  her  mother's  pains  and  benefits  to  laughter  and 
contempt,  that  she  may  feel  how  sharper  than  a  serpent's 
tooth  it  is  to  have  a  thankless  child!" 

The  Fool  tells  Lear  that  the  snail  has  a  house  to  put  his 
head  in,  not  to  give  away  to  his  daughters  and  leave  his 
horns  without  a  case.  No  play  so  abounds  in  maledictions 
and  references  to  the  lower  animals.  In  Act  2  Edmund 
lies  to  his  father  as  the  sisters  lied  to  Lear. 

Indeed  the  whole  action  is  like  a  greater  and  lesser 
storm  proceeding  at  the  same  time.  Edgar  flees  from  his 
brother,  he  grimes  his  face  with  filth  and  faces  the  perse- 
cutions of  the  sky ;  his  madness  is  assumed  most  perfectly, 
while  Lear's  madness  is  real.  In  Edgar's  ravings  we  see 
a  practical  purpose  in  view,  while  in  Lear's  we  have  the 
constant  brooding  on  one  great  anguish;  so  well  did 
Shakespeare  know  the  mind. 

Lear,  in  despair,  now  turns  to  Regan  for  protection. 
Abandoned  by  one  child,  he  turns  to  the  other.  Alas,  she 
defends  her  inhuman  sister,  she  calls  her  father  old,  and 
begs  him  to  implore  Goneril's  forgiveness.  Our  pity  in- 
creases. He  and  the  Fool  now  go  out  into  the  storm — the 
elements  rage,  "spit  fire,  spout  rain,  nor  rain,  wind,  thun- 
der, fire,  are  my  daughters,  I  tax  you  not  with  unkind- 
ness.  I  never  gave  you  kingdom,  called  you  children — I, 
a  poor,  infirm,  weak,  despised  old  man." 

77 


SHAKESPEARE    STUDIES 

The  4th  scene  is  a  convention  of  agonies.  External 
nature  convulsed,  Lear  insane,  the  babbling  of  the  Fool, 
Kent  faithful  and  tender — no  such  scene  can  be  found 
elsewhere.  Only  Michael  Angelo  or  Dante  might  have 
conceived  it !  Nature  howls  the  woes  of  humanity.  Kent, 
Lear  and  the  Fool  enter  a  rude  hovel.  Lear  says:  "O! 
that  way  madness  lies:  Let  me  shun  that!"  Yet  even 
then  he  prays  for  other  defenseless  wretches  that  bide  the 
pelting  of  this  pitiless  storm.  Edgar  enters  disguised  as  a 
madman.  The  debate  between  him  and  Lear,  interrupted 
by  the  mouthings  of  the  Fool,  surpasses  all  art.  Gloster 
appears,  and  Edgar  says  "the  prince  of  darkness  is  a 
gentleman."  Lear  asks  him  what  is  the  cause  of  thunder? 
Edgar's  feigned  madness  surpasses  that  of  Hamlet.  And 
he  leaves,  saying,  "Childe  Roland  to  the  dark  tower 
came." 

Then  follows  the  wonderful  imitation  trial.  It  is  a 
medley  in  which  all  take  part.  Edgar  is  the  Judge,  the 
Fool  sits  by  his  side,  Goneril  and  Regan  are  summoned  in 
spirit.  Lear  cries:  "She  kicked  the  poor  father."  The 
trial  proceeds,  it  is  the  climax  of  sorrow.  Edgar  can 
scarcely  conceal  his  tears,  Lear  sees  little  dogs  bark  at 
him  and  babbles  unintelligibly  saying,  "We'll  go  to  supper 
in  the  morning." 

The  Fool  is  the  soul  of  pathos  in  a  sort  of  comic  set- 
ting, yet  his  fun  contrasted  with  Lear's  agony  is  idealized 
into  tragic  beauty.  We  seem  to  gaze  on  something  sur- 
passing earth  and  time;  here, is  humanity  deserted,  old 
age  abandoned,  while  pity  weeps  and  folly  smiles.  Lear 
knows  that  "you  cannot  fetter  strong  madness  in  a  silken 
thread,  charm  ache  with  air,  and  agony  with  words."  It 
is  tremendous  realism.  In  an  awful  scene  that  follows, 
Gloster  is  captured,  Regan  pulls  out  his  beard,  and  puts 
out  his  aged  eyes;  he  says  "he  can  smell  his  way  to 

78 


KING    LEAR 

Dover."  Gloster  is  all  dark  'and  comfortless  now.  The 
servants  note  the  deed,  and  predict  that  women  will  all 
turn  monsters. 

In  Act  4  men  are  the  sport  of  the  gods.  All  is  con- 
fusion. We  learn  that  it  is  better  to  be  despised  than  to 
be  despised  and  flattered.  The  unsubstantial  air  is  sweeter 
than  human  scorn.  The  strange  mutations  of  life  make 
us  willing  to  leave  it.  Edgar  utters  a  profound  piece  of 
philosophy  in  "the  worst  is  not  so  long  as  we  can  say — 
this  is  the  worst."  This  was  a  favorite  passage  with  Ed- 
win Booth.  The  fellow  feeling  that  prevails  among  the 
destitute  is  beautifully  shown  by  the  solicitude  of  the 
sightless  Gloster  for  Lear  and  the  Fool.  "As  flies  to  wan- 
ton boys  are  we  to  the  gods — they  kill  us  for  their  sport." 

This  hapless  quartette  in  misery,  surpassing  anything  in 
fiction  or  in  poetry,  have  lost  faith  in  man  and  in  deity; 
only  the  storm  accords  with  their  inward  anguish.  Lost 
to  the  world  and  to  themselves,  they  have  found  kindness 
in  the  biting  wind  and  comfort  in  the  driving  rain.  Noth- 
ing more  is  needed  to  deduce  the  fall  of  man  from  his 
original  estate  than  this  miserere  of  despair.  How  many 
hapless  vagrants  since  have  welcomed  the  play  of  the 
elements  after  man's  ingratitude !  It  is  the  very  crown  of 
the  dramatist's  art  that  he  so  pierces  to  the  core  of  human 
neglect,  and  that  with  the  increasing  sum  of  sorrow  he 
compels  the  heavens  to  weep  at  man's  stony-hearted 
attitude. 

If  the  play  teaches  anything,  it  is  that  nature  is  after 
all  kind  in  her  rudest  moments.  Madmen  now  lead  the 
blind  and  Edgar  leads  Gloster  to  Dover's  cliffs.  There  is 
a  world  in  the  lines :  "Give  me  thy  arm,  poor  Tom  shall 
lead  thee !"  It  were  impossible  that  such  a  pair  as  Goneril 
and  Albany,  her  husband,  should  long  agree.  He  fears 
her  disposition,  and  she  calls  him  a  milklivered  man.  She 

79 


SHAKESPEARE    STUDIES 

reminds  us  of  Lady  Macbeth,  yet  she  surpasses  her  in 
cool  and  defiant  sin,  in  calculating  and  unfeeling  hate. 
Milton  never  drew  such  a  woman,  in  whom  the  springs  of 
s6c  were  dry  and  the  fountains  of  goodness  congealed.  It 
is  a  picture  of  the  under  world.  She  is  a  tigress,  "deform- 
ity seems  not  in  the  fiend  so  horrid  as  in  woman."  Albany 
is  not  wholly  sold  unto  Satan,  he  relents  a  little.  He  up- 
braids his  wife.  "What  have  you  done?  Tigers,  not 
daughters,  a  father  have  you  madded.  Thou  art  a  fiend, 
a  woman's  shape  doth  shield  thee !" 

As  Hugo  well  says,  "Shakespeare  takes  ingratitude  and 
gives  the  monster  two  heads."  Goneril  is  the  calm  wielder 
of  pitiless  force,  Regan  is  the  smaller  and  shriller  malice. 
Even  in  their  love  they  are  odious.  Their  caresses  are 
the  blandishments  of  serpents.  To  the  last  Goneril  is  true 
.to  her  nature.  Regan  is  killed  by  her  sister,  who  takes  her 
own  life,  and  boldly  enters  the  undiscovered  country.  All 
through  the  play  the  noble  Kent  walks  the  high  table-land 
of  devotion  and  manliness  and  truth.  He  relieves  the 
darkness.  Without  him  we  would  faint  under  the  ac- 
cumulation of  horrors. 

Sweet  is  the  story  that  comes  from  France,  where  the 
lovely  Cordelia  seated  on  her  throne  hears  of  the  woes  of 
her  distant  father.  "An  ample  tear  trill'd  down  her  deli- 
cate cheek.  You  have  seen  rain  and  sunshine  at  once; 
her  smiles  and  tears  were  like  a  better  way."  Once  she 
cried:  "Sisters!  Sisters!  shame  of  ladies!  Sisters!"  But 
not  a  word  of  hate  or  recrimination.  Never  was  such 
magnanimity  portrayed  before  nor  since.  This  was  Cor- 
delia. Kent  charges  all  the  tragedy  to  the  starry  influence. 
"It  is  the  stars  above  us  that  govern  our  conditions." 

There  is  a  picture  of  the  medical  science  of  that  rude 
age  in  the  interview  of  Cordelia  and  the  doctor. 

So 


KING    LEAR 

She  asks:  "What  can  man's  wisdom  in  the  restoring 
of  Lear's  bereaved  sense  ?  He  that  helps  him  takes  all  my 
outward  worth."  He  answers,  "There  is  means,  madam ; 
our  foster  nurse  of  nature  is  repose,  the  which  he  lacks." 
It  reminds  us  of  Macbeth's  "can'st  thou  minister  to  a  mind 
diseased,  pluck  up  the  memory  of  a  rooted  sorrow  ?"  In- 
deed the  whole  tragedy  turns  about  a  mind  unhinged  by 
unparalleled  misfortune  and  neglect.  Cordelia  shines  the 
one  star  in  this  black  night.  Gloster  would  cast  himself 
off  from  Dover's  high  cliff,  but  Edgar  leads  him  carefully 
below.  He  does  not  yet  know  his  faithful  son  whom  he 
disowned. 

Lear  enters  dressed  in  wild  flowers,  yet  every  inch  a 
king.  Nothing  in  all  literature  approaches  this  scene  for 
kingly  grandeur,  Mad  and  deserted,  lonely  and  uncrown- 
ed, his  heart  gnawed  by  filial  ingratitude,  his  mind  unhing- 
ed, great  thoughts  still  flicker  in  his  brain.  Gloster  would 
kiss  his  sovereign's  hand,  but  Lear  says :  "Let  me  wipe  it 
first,  it  smells  of  mortality."  What  a  touch!  Thus  the 
two  poor  outcasts  talk,  the  one  blind  and  the  other  insane, 
yet  Lear  pities  him,  for  even  the  blind  may  see  how  this 
world  goes.  Then  the  great  passage:  "Robes  and  furr'd 
gowns  hide  all.  Plate  sin  with  gold  and  the  strong  lance 
of  justice  hurtless  breaks;  arm  it  in  rags  and  a  pigmy's 
straw  doth  pierce  it.  Get  thee  glass  eyes  and  like  a  scurvy 
politician  seem  to  see  the  things  thou  dost  not.  Now,  now, 
now,  pull  off.  my  boots."  It  is  reason  in  madness. 

The  last  scene  of  this  act  is  like  a  breath  of  heaven. 
Lear  is  in  a  tent  softly  sleeping,  Cordelia  and  the  doctor 
work  over  him;  she  thanks  honest  Kent  for  her  father's 
preservation,  and  cries — "O  you  kind  gods,  cure  this 
great  breach  in  his  abused  nature!  O  my  dear  father! 
Restoration  hang  thy  medicine  on  my  lips,  and  let  this 
kiss  repair  those  violent  harms  that  my  two  sisters  have 

81 


SHAKESPEARE    STUDIES 

in  their  reverence  made."  Then  "Was  this  a  face  to  be 
opposed  against  the  warring  winds?  Mine  enemy's  dog, 
though  he  had  bit  me,  should  have  stood  that  night  against 
my  fire."  Lear  then  wakes,  saying  "You  do  me  wrong 
to  take  me  out  of  the  grave." 

Cordelia :  "Sir,  do  you  not  know  me?"  Lear :  "You  are 
a  spirit,  I  know;  when  did  you  die?"  Cordelia:  "O  look 
upon  me,  sir,  and  hold  your  hands  in  benediction  o'er  me." 
Lear:  "I  am  a  very  foolish  fond  old  man,  fourscore  and 
upward,  and  to  deal  plainly,  I  fear  I  am  not  in  my  perfect 
mind.  .  .  .  Do  not  laugh  at  me,  for,  as  I  am  a  man, 
I  think  this  lady  to  be  my  child  Cordelia !"  Cordelia : 
"And  so  I  am,  I  am." 

Was  ever  such  a  scene  portrayed?  The  aged  father 
returning  to  reason,  the  angelic  daughter  bending  above 
him  to  heal  his  malady  with  a  kiss,  their  mutual  tears, 
her  delight  at  his  recognition  and  his  awakening  to  her 
voice ;  his  contrition  for  his  mistake  of  long  ago,  her 
boundless  love  that  floods  her  being  and  his  like  an  ocean 
with  its  forgiveness,  it  is  the  sublimation  of  love  and  ten- 
derness, generosity  and  recognition.  All  the  past  is  obliter- 
ated, the  poor  prodigal  outcast  comes  to  himself,  and  sup- 
ported on  the  only  breast  that  ever  beat  for  him  he  totters 
away.  Well  did  Sir  Walter  say,  "Woman  is  like  ivy— 
the  greater  the  ruin  the  closer  she  clings." 

Would  that  the  play  might  have  closed  here !  Then  we 
would  have  had  a  duet  of  birds  and  a  sunset  of  hope.  But 
the  final  act  must  now  come.  Goneril  sinks  lower  and 
lower,  she  plots  Regan's  death,  there  is  a  great  battle. 
Lear  and  Cordelia  are  taken  prisoners  by  the  hostile 
forces,  "truth  is  on  the  scaffold,  wrong  is  on  the  throne." 
Yet  Cordelia,  courageous  to  the  last,  exclaims :  "We  are 
not  the  first  who  with  best  meaning  have  incurred  the 
worst.  Shall  we  not  see  these  daughters  and  these  sis- 

82 


KING    LEAR 

ters?"  Here  she  discloses  the  wonderful  patience  and 
nobility  of  her  nature.  It  is  a  touch  of  sarcasm  but  how 
exquisitely  veiled. 

Lear  would  away  to  prison:  "We  two  alone  will  sing 
like  birds  in  the  cage.  When  thou  dost  ask  me  blessing, 
I'll  kneel  down  and  ask  of  thee  forgiveness.  So  we'll  live 
and  pray  and  sing,  and  tell  old  tales  and  laugh  at  gilded 
butterflies  and  hear  poor  rogues  talk  of  court  news ;  and 
we'll  wear  out  in  a  walled  prison  packs  and  sects  of  great 
ones  that  ebb  and  flow  by  the  moon."  He  wanders  in  his 
mind  now,  and  the  two  disappear  under  guard.  Edgar 
kills  Edmund,  Goneril  and  Regan  are  brought  in  dead, 
Edgar  would  rescind  an  order  to  kill  Lear  and  Cordelia, 
but  it  is,  alas,  too  late,  and  the  aged  father  enters  bearing 
his  murdered  angel  in  his  arms. 

Lear's  speech  here  surpasses  anything  in  Shakespeare,  it 
is  the  frenzy  of  a  Titan,  the  roar^ot^-giant,  it  even  exceeds 
the  awtuTwlnds  uf  OlhcttoT^Howl.  howl,  howl,  O  you 
are  men  of  stones  U-Had^T}^ourtongues  and  eyeTT^Hise- 
them  so  that  heaven's  vault  should  crack.  She's  gone 
forever!  I  know  when  one  is  dead  and  when  one  lives. 
She's  dead  as  earth.  Lend  me  a  looking  glass;  if  that 
her  breath  will  mist  or  stain  the  stone,  why,  then  she 
lives."  "A  plague  upon  you  murderers,  traitors  all!  I 
might  have  saved  her ;  now  she's  gone  forever !  And  my 
poor  Fool  is  hanged !  Why  should  a  dog,  a  horse,  a  rat, 
have  life,  and  thou  no  breath  at  all?  Thou'lt  come  no 
more ;  never,  never,  never,  never,  never !  Do  you  see  this  ? 
Look  on  her,  look — her  lips,  look  there,  look  there !"  And 
the  great  heart  breaks  and  the  tortured  soul  passes  into 
the  beyond. 

Thus  the  tragedy  ends  without  relief.  In  Othello,  lago 
is  led  away  to  torture,  but  here  the  innocent  are  tortured 
and  the  guilty  ascend  the  throne.  Is  \^t  just?  It  is  in- 

83 


SHAKESPEARE     STUDIES 

scrutable.  There  is  little  trace  of  Providence  as  in  Hamlet, 
the  air  is  heavy,  the  stars  are  hidden  and  nature  is  con- 
vulsed; it  is  a  vast  battle  that  is  too  great  for  human 
comprehension.  Tennyson  called  it  the  catastrophe  of  a 
world.  Here  the  dramatist  let  loose  all  his  superhuman 
powers.  It  is  a  whirlwind  of  passion,  the  good  go  down, 
our  thoughts  are  in  anarchy,  petrified  indifference  is  con- 
trasted with  swollen  anguish,  human  compassion  is  ex- 
hausted, humanity  is  stripped  of  all  its  honors  and  left 
a  prey  to  scornful  power.  Cordelia's  death  is  the  consum- 
mation of  cruelty,  surely  the  catastrophe  is  terrible !  Yet 
is  she  not  a  saint  prepared  for  heaven?  No  one  would 
wish  to  see  Lear's  sufferings  prolonged.  Who  would  wish 
to  place  a  crown  on  that  head  that  lightnings  had  scarred  ? 
And  is  not  martyrdom  the  only  crown  for  such  a  life  as 
hers?  What  is  life?  Is  it  to  get  or  to  give,  to  gain  or  to 
bless,  to  possess  or  to  suffer  ?  What  had  Lear  to  offer  to 
the  Fool  ?  No  kingdom  nor  estate,  no  gold  nor  power,  no 
joy  nor  peace.  Only  the  life  of  a  wanderer,  homeless  and 
childless,  a  thatched  hovel  and  straw,  persecution,  aban- 
donment, hatred,  neglect,  a  beggar's  couch  and  a  beggar's 
fare. 

When  the  fatal  word  was  spoken  that  drove  the  old 
king  out  into  the  heath,  and  all  the  world  rejected  the  in- 
sane man,  it  was  the  faithful  Fool  who  said :  "That,  Sir, 
which  serves  and  seeks  for  gain,  And  follows  but  for 
form,  Will  pack  when  it  begins  to  rain,  And  leave  thee  in 
the  storm.  But  I  will  tarry;  the  Fooi  will  stay;  And  let 
the  wise  man  fly ;  The  knave  turns  fool  that  runs  away, 
The  Fool  no  knave  perdy."  As  Lear's  insanity  grows,  the 
Fool  would  banish  it  by  his  mirth.  When  the  night  de- 
scends wherein  the  cub-drawn  bear  would  couch  and  the 
unbonneted  monarch  runs,  it  is  the  Fool  who  attends  him, 
who  rallies  and  supports  him,  saying:  "He  that  has  a 

84 


KING    LEAR 

house  to  put  his  head  in  has  a  good  headpiece."  When 
Lear  sees  his  wits  desert  him,  the  faithful  servitor  laughs 
and  says :  "He  that  has  and  a  little  tiny  wit,  With  hev  ho! 
the  wind  and  the  rain,  Must  make  content  with  his  for- 
tunes fit,  For  the  rain  it  raineth  every  day."  Never  does 
his  cheerfulness  flee.  Inky  skies,  tumultuous  thunder,  the 
quaking  earth,  blinding  flashes  of  lightning,  sheets  of 
water  and  showers  of  hail,  is  this  a  setting  for  the  at- 
tachment of  two  souls,  is  this  the  condition  to  cement  two 
aching  hearts  ?  Yet,  like  Hagar  and  Ishmael  driven  forth 
by  Abraham,  hand  in  hand  go  these  miserable  men,  a 
naughty  night  to  swim  in — their  tattered  rags  dripping, 
twin  companions  in  sorrow  and  want,  bereft  of  all  com- 
fort and  denied  life's  necessities,  never  to  part  until  the 
one  is  hanged  for  his  devotion,  and  the  other  dies  on  his 
daughter's  lips.  It  would  seem  that  Shakespeare  in  de- 
rision would  hold  up  the  example  of  a  Fool  to  men  and 
say:  "This  is  attachment,  where  is  your  vaunted  friend- 
ship?" Strip  the  richest  of  their  property,  strip  the  wisest 
of  their  knowledge,  strip  the  handsomest  of  their  beauty, 
and  where  are  their  friends  ?  But  go  farther,  and  strip  a 
regal  mind  of  its  powers,  make  the  intellectual  cathedral 
totter  and  the  judgment  wander,  transform  a  harmonious 
thinker  into  a  disconnected  babbler,  push  reason  from  its 
throne — there  remains  no  refuge  but  an  asylum  with 
grated  windows  and  guarded  walls. 

If  a  friend  is  the  one  who  comes  in  when  all  the  world 
goes  out,  where  will  you  find  the  counterpart  of  this  wise 
Fool,  who  clung  the  closer  when  the  rain  increased,  and 
who  loved  the  more  when  insanity  clouded  the  brain? 
Byron's  truest  friend  was  his  dog,  and  Shakespeare's 
greatest  friend  was  a  Fool,  What  a  satire  is  this  upon  our 
carpet  attachments,  our  church  civilities,  our  opera  greet- 
ings, our  veneered  and  lacquered  amenities,  our  family 


SHAKESPEARE    STUDIES 

professions,  our  altar  pledges — "until  death  doth  us 
part!"  From  the  nameless  grave  of  a  nameless  Fool  we 
must  pluck  the  roses  of  an  unchanging  friendship,  from 
the  steamy  rags  of  a  dripping  outcast  we  must  catch  the 
drops  of  holy  water,  through  the  perforated  roof  of  a 
squalid  hut  wre  must  see  the  stars  appear.  Who  among 
us  knows  the  friendship  of  nature?  Timon  found  the 
forest  a  relief  from  the  flatteries  of  men,  the  Duke  read 
sermons  in  stones  and  books  in  the  running  brook,  Lear 
found  midnight  thunders  sweeter  than  palace  lies. 

As  Othello  warns  us  that  refinement  and  education  may 
become  the  very  artifices  of  hell  to  allure  and  enslave  a 
noble  mind,  as  Hamlet  warns  us  that  procrastination  be- 
numbs the  will  and  freezes  the  resolution,  so  Lear  warns 
us  that  all  our  boasted  pride  of  wealth,  if  unsupported  by 
personal  sacrifice,  is  but  the  glittering  maelstrom  to  en- 
gulf each  unreflecting  soul.  Goneril  gained  and  lost ; 
Cordelia  lost  and  won.  Regan  expelled  herself  when  she 
drove  her  father  out  in  the  storm.  He  that  saveth  his  life 
shall  lose  it.  Cordelia  died  for  a  principle,  she  disdained 
the  primrose  path. 

What  a  satire  on  the  flimsy  gains  and  estates  of  men  is 
this  immortal  play!  Albany  sits  on  Lear's  throne,  while 
its  just  possessor  is  the  pitiless  sport  of  the  hail.  Were 
all  the  property  in  the  world  suddenly  to  change  hands 
and  to  pass  to  its  rightful  owners,  what  a  hurrying  and 
confusion,  what  shame  and  mortification  would  ensue! 
Cordelia  was  rich  though  poor,  for  she  owned  herself. 
Principle  is  more  than  self-preservation,  "  'tis  man's  per- 
dition to  be  safe  when  for  the  truth  he  ought  to  die." 

Wendell  Phillips  thought  that  no  ardent  Christian  could 
die  at  ease  in  his  bed.  He  called  Christianity  a  battle,  not 
a  dream.  Our  morals  are  nickel-plated,  we  admire 
Regulus  but  we  do  not  imitate  him,  we  ponder  Emerson 

86 


KING    LEAR 

but  we  do  not  dare  to  follow  him.  Cordelia's  end  horri- 
fies us  because  martyrs  are  less  plentiful  than  misers. 
"For  a 'cap  and  bells  our  lives  we  pay,  bubbles  we  buy  with 
a  whole  soul's  tasking ;  'tis  heaven  alone  that  is  given  away, 
'tis  only  God  may  be  had  for  the  asking."  Shakespeare 
knew  the  human  heart.  He  knew  that  only  character  and 
thought  are  real  property.  In  the  whole  length  and  breadth 
of  his  immortal  works  there  is  no  wealth  but  achievement, 
no  success  but  truth,  no  estate  but  character. 

You  cannot  find  a  character  in  all  Shakespeare  who  is 
sublimated  by  vice,  nor  one  who  is  degraded  save  by  him- 
self. Timon  of  Athens  indicts  us  for  our  feverish  wor- 
ship of  gold.  Wolsey  indicts  us  for  our  reckless  ambi- 
tions. Prospero  indicts  us  for  our  domination  by  the  ma- 
terial. Portia  indicts  us  for  injustice  to  the  weak.  His- 
tory is  a  spiral,  what  is  lost  in  one  age  is  regained  in  the 
next,  the  centuries  are  beads  on  time's  string  and  not  of 
equal  value.  Shall  we  take  our  ethics  from  the  morning 
paper? 

I  have  heard  how  Truth  once  learned  of  the  threaten- 
ing and  incursion  of  her  foes,  and  she  determined  to  mus- 
ter her  servants  and  review  their  weapons,  and  beyond 
all  her  expectations  she  found  everything  prepared.  There 
was  a  vast  host  of  armed  men,  weapons  which  they  exer- 
cised admirably,  brightly  flashing  from  afar.  But  as  she 
drew  nearer,  she  sank  into  a  swoon ;  what  she  had  thought 
iron  and  steel  were  mere  toys ;  the  swords  were  made  of 
the  mere  lead  of  words ;  the  breastplates  of  the  soft  linen 
of  pleasure;  the  helmets  of  the  wax  of  plumed  vanity; 
the  shields  were  of  papyrus  scrolled  over  with  opinions; 
the  spears  were  thin  reeds  of  weak  conjecture ;  the  colors 
were  spider  webs  of  philosophical  systems;  the  cannon 
was  Indian  reed;  the  powder  was  poppy  seed;  the  balls 
were  of  glass — Through  the  indolent  neglect  of  their  lead- 

87 


SHAKESPEARE    STUDIES 

ers  they  had  sold  their  true  weapons  and  substituted  these. 
"What  avails  me,"  she  cried,  "your  faith,  since  your 
actions  are  worthless;  of  old  when  I  led  naked  unarmed 
combatants  to  the  field,  one  martyr,  one  warrior,  faithful 
to  death,  was  worth  more  to  me  than  a  hundred  of  you  in 
your  gilded  and  silvered  panoplies !" 


ROMEO  AND  JULIET 

—  BY  — 
F.  HYATT  SMITH 


ROMEO  AND  JULIET 

THERE  is  nothing  new  under  the  sun.  The  Ara- 
bians had  malleable  glass  which  they  twined 
around  their  wrists;  Cicero  saw  the  entire  Ilaid 
written  on  a  skin  so  small  that  it  was  carried  in 
a  nutshell ;  Nero  used  a  gem  in  his  ring  for  an  opera 
glass ;  the  Egyptian  colors  seem  immortal ;  artists 
have  lost  Titian's  method  of  mixing  pigments ; 
English  lancets  cannot  endure  the  atmosphere  of 
India  unless  gilded,  while  the  Damascus  blades  are  as 
perfect  as  when  made  in  the  oldest  city  in  the  world; 
Saladin  drew  a  sword  that  severed  a  down-pillow  with 
a  single  stroke;  Pompey's  pillar  weighed  a  ton  and  was 
hung  in  air ;  the  ancients  built  canals  far  superior  to  ours ; 
the  Egyptians  had  locks  that  opened  for  the  passage  of 
their  boats ;  no  man  knows  how  the  Pyramids  were  ven- 
tilated, nor  their  gigantic  stones  quarried  and  erected ; 
the  railroad  dates  back  tb  Memphis ;  every  social  question 
was  debated  in  Thebes;  Solomon's  Temple  was  guarded 
by  lightning  rods ;  the  spinning  machine  is  two  thousand 
years  old;  a  Hindoo  princess  wore  seven  garments  so 
diaphonous  that  her  father  thought  her  scarcely  covered ; 
stearn  must  have  been  used  in  Assyria ;  no  man  can  now 
make  a  perfect  mirror  of  bronze;  the  ruins  of  Pompeii 
disclose  cut  glass  of  wonderful  patterns ;  the  best  modern 
puns  may  be  traced  to  Greece  and  Rome ;  the  story  of 
Cinderella  is  old  as  the  race ;  and  Shakespeare  borrowed 
most  of  the  plots  on  which  he  erected  his  unfading  crea- 
tions. 

It  is  more  difficult  to  be  up  to  antiquity,  than  up  to 
date.  A  Neapolitan  writer  in  1476  described  a  young 
man  named  Mariotto,  who  was  enamored  of  a  citizen's 
daughter  named  Giannozza,  and  was  loved  by  her  in 
return.  The  Fates  opposed  their  union,  but  they  were 


SHAKESPEARE  *  STUDIES 

secretly  married  by  a  monk.  Soon  Mariotto  killed  the 
girl's  kinsman  and  was  banished  to  Alexandria.  In  his 
absence,  her  father  urged  her  to  accept  the  hand  of  a 
rich  suitor,  but  in  distress  she  turned  to  the  friar,  who 
gave  her  a  powder  which  cast  her  into  a  three  days' 
slumber  resembling  death.  She  was  buried  in  a  church. 
Meanwhile,  the  absent  Mariotto  broke  from  exile,  an,d 
hurrying  to  the  church  where  she  lay  entombed,  flung 
himself  on  the  grave.  Here  he  was  discovered  and  taken 
for  a  thief  and  beheaded.  The  agonized  girl  entered 
a  convent  and  died  of  a  broken  heart. 

Upon  this  early  story  Shakespeare  built  the  greatest 
love  tragedy  in  the  world.  Romeo  and  Juliet  is  set  in 
Italy,  the  land  of  passion  and  romance.  The  moonlit 
nights  have  a  peculiar  warmth  and  lustre,  the  fruit  trees 
are  tipped  with  silver,  the  nightingale  sings  in  the  pome- 
granate boughs,  the  masquers  are  on  the  palazzo,  in  the 
streets  at  noon  the  light  glares,  and  the  blood  is  stirring 
in  men's  veins,  and  the  rapier  leaps  from  the  scabbard, 
the  perplexities  of  love  and  hate  are  swiftly  solved  by  the 
poignard  and  the  poison-phial. 

The  play  was  published  in  1597,  and  is  said  to  have 
been  the  master's  first  attempt  at  tragedy,  when  youthful 
ardor  and  ambition  fired  his  energies,  and  love  gilded 
every  scene.  It  is  a  tragedy  of  high  and  natural  passion, 
of  alternate  rapture  and  despair,  of  maiden  loveliness  and 
manly  hope,  of  festivity  and  foreboding,  of  embrace  and 
death.  It  is  his  only  tragedy  built  upon  a  love  tale. v  It 
has  the  sweetness  of  the  rose,  the  languor  of  the  mid- 
night bird,  the  softness  of  the  southern  spring. 

Romeo  and  Juliet  are  in  love,  but  they  are  not  love-sick. 
There  is  no  insipid  interchange  of  superficial  sentiments, 
no  saccharine  smiles  and  sighs,  but  the  health  and  glow 
of  two  fervid  natures,  the  heart  beats,  the  blood  courses, 

92 


ROMEO    AND    JULIET 

all  that  was  to  come  was  theirs;  their  hopes  were  of 
air  and  their  passions  of  fire.  We  have  a  .picture  of 
human  life  as  it  is  in  the  order  of  nature.  Inexhaustible 
passion  is  checked  by  bitter  experience,  and  the  nuptial 
coUch  becomes  the  untimely  grave.  The  time  is  midsum- 
mer and  the  action  takes  but  five  days. 

The  prologue  calls  the  main  actors  a  "pair  of  ill-starred 
lovers,"  and  indeed  from  the  very  beginning  the  heavens 
are  unpropitious,  quarrel  follows  quarrel,  Fate  is  the 
undertone  of  all  the  rapture  and  ecstasy;  all  is  done  in 
youthful  haste;  superstition  and  the  supernatural  have 
full  sway;  the  poetry  is  the  richest  possible,  splendid 
imagery  throngs  each  act,  nature  is  wildly  prodigal, 
intense  heat  and  impetuous  power  and  throbbing  desire 
vivify  the  lines,  there  is  no  chill  mist  and  northern 
gloom  as  in  Hamlet,  but  brilliant  color  glows  throughout 
and  all  the  forms  of  the  language  come  from  the  dreamy 
south.  We  are  taught  that  the  affections  are  given  us 
to  heighten  our  enjoyment  of  life,  but  if  too  far  pursued 
they  transform  all  blessing  into  curse  and  chaos. 

On  a  dark  background  of  family  rivalry  and  hate  that 
fills  Verona  with  uproar  and  blood,  the  tragedy  is  based, 
but  the  youthful  lovers  do  not  share  the  ancient  antipathy, 
and  on  this  desolating  soil  their  love  grows  more  luxuriant 
and  intense.  From  early  times  the  Montagues  and  Capu- 
lets  have  warred,  and  the  first  scene  introduces  the 
Prince  who  quells  a  fracas  in  the  street.  Romeo  is 
already  touched  by  the  melancholy  of  love;  he  walks 
abroad  in  the  mornings  "adding  to  clouds  more  clouds 
with  his  deep  sighs."  Mercutio  questions  what  lengthens 
his  cousin's  hours.  He  is  told  it  is  not  having  that  which 
having  makes  them  short.  "Love  is  a  smoke  raised  with 
the  fume  of  sighs,  being  purged  a  fire  sparkling  in  lover's 
eyes;  being  vexed  a  sea  nourished  with  lover's  tears,  a 

93 


SHAKESPEARE     STUDIES 

madness  most  discreet,  a  choking  gall,  and  a  preserving 
sweet." 

Thus  he  is  already  ripe  for  the  heavenly  impression. 
And  Shakespeare  makes  him  the  victim  of  an  earlier 
passion,  here  as  always  true  to  nature.  Juliet  is  now 
but  fourteen  and  her  ambitious  father  would  have  her  two 
years  hence  the  bride  of  Paris.  Hamlet  lived  in  the  world 
of  thought ;  Romeo  lives  in  the  world  of  emotion.  He  lives 
and  moves  and  has  his  being  in  love.  When  he  meets 
Juliet  it  is  love  at  first  sight.  All  our  modern  con- 
ventions, our  place  and  form,  our  social  regulations, 
Shakespeare  avoids;  the  tide  of  passion  leaps  like  a 
spring,  crystal-pure  from  the  vernal  earth,  he  sees  his 
queen  first  at  a  ball  and  says,  "her  beauty  hangs  upon 
the  cheek  of  night  like  a  rich  jewel  in  an  Ethiope's  ear" ; 
both  are  masqued  ;  they  kiss ;  she  says,  "Sin  from  my  lips? 
O  trespass  sweetly  urged,  give  me  my  sin  again."  She 
asks  the  nurse  his  name;  "If  he  be  married,  my  grave 
is  like  to  be  my  wedding  bed."  Yet  even  now  his  mind 
misgives  some  consequence  yet  hanging  in  the  stars,  "tho 
He  that  hath  the  steerage  of  his  course  directs  his  sail." 
What  a  picture  of  man's  helplessness  and  the  guidance 
of  God! 

The  great  garden  scene  follows.  It  is  enchantment. 
Juliet  betrays  her  feelings  in  soliloquy,  and  shrouded  by 
considerate  night;  Romeo  can  hope  for  an  interview  only 
at  the  peril  of  his  life;  innocence  struggles  with  desire; 
she  gives  and  withdraws ;  speaks  and  retracts ;  manifests 
her  love  and  yet  is  not  unwomanly;  declines  his  oaths 
and  remembers  the  falseness  of  his  sex ;  she  steps  out 
of  the  enclosure  of  decorum  but  is  thus  led  by  her  nature 
as  a  childish  innocent,  by  impelling  necessity,  and  by  her 
good  intentions.  Not  an  unbecoming  word  tarnishes  her 
lips. 

94 


ROMEO    AND    JULIET 

Nowhere  in  the  world  is  the  charm  and  shame  of  inno- 
cence so  perfectly  blended  as  here.  "Thou  knowest  the 
mask  of  night  is  on  my  face,  else  would  a  maiden  blush 
bepaint  my  cheek  for  that  which  thou  hast  heard  me 
speak  to-night.  O  gentle  Romeo,  if  thou  dost  love,  pro- 
nounce it  faithfully;  or  if  thou  thinkest  I  am  too  quickly 
won,  I'll  frown  and  be  perverse  and  say  thee  nay." 
"My  love  is  as  boundless  as  the  sea,  my  love  as  deep; 
the  more  I  give  to  thee  the  more  I  have;  for  both  are 
infinite."  This  one  passage  reveals  all  the  girlish  nature. 
It  is  a  more  vehement  confession  than  that  of  Miranda 
in  The  Tempest.  She  does  not  pine  in  thought  with 
a  green  and  yellow  melancholy.  Her  passion  is  a  moun- 
tain torrent  sweeping  all  before  it  in  resistless  flood.  The 
action  of  the  play  is  now  fairly  begun  and  on  it  rushes 
to  its  sad  consummation. 

Into  this  world  of  love,  Shakespeare  introduces  the 
gray-haired  Friar  Laurence,  the  oracle  of  experience  and 
age.  He  is  the  chorus  in  the  tragedy,  teaching  that  excess 
in  any  enjoyment,  however  pure,  transforms  the  sweet 
into  bitterness.  In  his  first  soliloquy,  as  he  muses  in  his 
garden,  we  have  wonderful  truths  gathered  like  his  own 
herbs  from  the  ground  and  touching  all  human  life. 
"Naught  so  vile  that  on  the  earth  doth  live,  but  to  the 
earth  some  special  good  doth  give ;  nor  aught  so  good 
but  strained  from  that  fair  use,  revolts  from  true  birth 
stumbling  on  abuse;  virtue  itself  turns  vice  being  mis- 
applied, and  vice  sometimes  by  action  dignified;  within 
the  infant  rind  of  this  fair  flower,  poison  hath  residence 
and  medicine  power;  two  such  opposed  kings  encamp 
them  still  in  man  as  well  as  herbs,  grace  and  rude  will ; 
and  where  the  worser  is  predominant  full  soon  the  canker 
death  eats  up  that  plant." 

95 


SHAKESPEARE    STUDIES 

Here  we  learn  that  the  ground  is  filled  with  remedies 
for  man  and  implanted  for  a  wise  purpose ;  and  that  the 
triumph  of  will  over  grace  always  marks  the  decline  of 
a  well  balanced  nature.  He  is  sympathetic  with  the 
lovers,  looks  with  a  kindly  eye  on  their  ardor,  chides 
Romeo  for  forgetting  Rosaline,  and  warns  him  that  "they 
stumble  that  run  fast." 

The  nurse  and  Peter  are  a  contrast  in  their  low  esti- 
mate of  love  to  the  prominent  actors.  She  advises  Juliet 
that  the  Friar  waits  in  his  cell  to  unite  her  with  the 
object  of  her  adoration,  and  she  hastens  to  meet  him 
there.  They  are  made  one  in  secret  by  the  holy  man. 
Mercutio  falls  a  victim  of  Tybalt,  the  coarse  bully. 
Already  the  passion  of  the  lovers  has  produced  a  deadly 
hate  that  issues  in  murder.  Mercutio  cries,  "a  plague 
on  both  your  houses !"  Romeo  comes,  learns  of  the  death 
of  his  friend,  and  avenges  it  with  Tybalt's  death.  This 
is  the  climax  of  the  play. 

For  this  crime  he  is  banished  by  the  Prince.  The  won- 
derful soliloquy  of  Juliet  follows;  "Come  gentle  night, 
come  loving  blackbrowed  night,  give  me  my  Romeo,  and 
when  he  shall  die,  take  him  and  cut  him  out  in  little 
stars,  and  he  will  make  the  face  of  heaven  so  fine  that 
all  the  world  will  be  in  love  with  night." 

What  an  antiphony  of  bird  voices  do  we  hear  in  the 
fifth  scene:  Juliet  at  the  window  and  Romeo  beneath  in 
the  garden :  "Wilt  thou  be  gone  ?  it  is  not  yet  near  day ; 
it  was  the  nightingale  and  not  the  lark,  believe  me,  Love, 
it  was  the  nightingale.  It  was  the  lark,  the  herald  of 
the  morn;  look,  Love,  what  envious  streaks  do  lace  the 
severing  clouds  in  yonder  east;  I  must  be  gone  and  live, 
or  stay  and  die.  Yon  light  is  not  daylight  I  know  it; 
I,  therefore,  stay,  yet  thou  need'st  not  to  be  gone."  She 
seems  to  see  the  coming  tragedy;  "O  God  I  have  an 

96 


ROMEO    AND    JULIET 

ill  divining  soul ;  methinks  I  see  thee  now  thou  art  below, 
as  one  dead  in  the  bottom  of  a  tomb."  Thus  they  part. 

She  is  betrothed  to  the  unloved  Paris,  and  must  be 
married  on  Thursday  next,  and  in.  despair  she  seeks  again 
the  wise  Friar  for  a  way  out  of  the  maze,  and  he  gives 
her  the  vial  of  stupefying  liquor  that  shall  "make  the 
roses  in  her  lips  and  cheeks  to  fade,  her  eye's  windows 
fall,  each  part  deprived  of  supple  government,  stiff,  stark, 
and  cold,  appear  like  death ;  thus  she  shall  continue  two 
and  forty  hours  and  then  awake  as  from  a  pleasant 
sleep." 

It  was  a  rare  device  well  worthy  of  an  Italian  monk. 
She  had  been  bent  on  suicide.  Only  a  woman  deeply 
devoted  and  wrought  up  to  a  pitch  of  passion  could  have 
accepted  such  a  hazardous  ^lan.  The  crafty  Friar  had 
foreseen  that  the  impetuous  pair  would  be  entrapped  by 
Fate.  But  he  was  their  best  friend  as  many  a  minister 
has  been  since  that  day.  Perhaps  the  new  therapeutics 
will  be  employed  in  similar  emergencies  at  long  range  and 
with  less  risk,  hypnotic  suggestion  may  be  used  to  conceal 
and  preserve  the  lady  from  the  imperious  demands  of 
ambitious  parents,  and  restore  her  to  the  arms  of  her 
desired  spouse.  Here  is  a  new  and  profitable  field  for 
clergymen,  a  Gretna  Green  of  the  New  Thought. 

Juliet  has  little  forethought,  she  is  ardent  abandon, 
eager  affection,  a  thing  of  love  fresh  as  the  daisy  on  the 
grass ;  passion  takes  whole  hold  of  her  being,  she  is  soft 
and  fair  and  flexible,  small  and  delicately  formed,  lan- 
guorous and  inexperienced,  natural  and  unconstrained, 
not  simple  like  Miranda,  nor  grand  like  Isabel,  nor 
fanciful  like  Viola.  She  has  a  tender  heart  and  a  vivid 
imagination,  she  invests  her  mate  with  all  the  graces  of 
nobility;  he  is  the  object  of  her  dreams  and  the  summit 
of  her  hopes;  she  is  pure  virgin  love  unsophisticated 

97 


SHAKESPEARE    STUDIES 

and  destitute  of  weariness;  subject  to  superstitious  influ- 
ences, passion  makes  her  poetical,  she  is  all  in  each  act  of 
her  soul ;  her  first  thought  always  is  of  Romeo's  danger ; 
women  have  fewer  elements  in  their  composition  than 
men,  and  thus  are  better  poised.  Juliet  is  the  nearest 
approach  we  have  to  Cleopatra,  but  pure ;  she  is  impatient 
for  self-surrender;  with  her,  wisdom  cannot  overcome 
love;  her's  is  an  Amazon  torrent  that  bursts  its  bounds, 
a  cataract  of  passion  that  will  not  be  stayed.  We  love 
her  for  her  ingenuousness,  for  her  dew  of ,  youth,  for  her 
tireless  vigil  of  ardent  devotion,  for  her  unstinted  wealth 
of  affection,  for  her  charming  simplicity,  for  her  immature 
freshness,  maidenly  attachment,  and  grand  loyalty  to  the 
very  last. 

Love,  or  its  counterpart,  is  bought  and  sold;  it  is 
bandied  about  on  rude  lips  and  .in  suggestive  hints;  it 
is  a  thing  of  the  mart  and.  parlor  and  counting-room 
and  ball.  Our  modern  Juliets  and  Priscillas  weight  with 
dainty  accuracy  all  the  accessories  of  marriage,  all  its 
emoluments,  all  its  risks  and  rewards.  Too  soon  their 
love  alters  when  it  alteration  finds.  But  not  so  our 
heroine,  she  never  suspects  a  price  or  cost  or  separation ; 
her  soul  and  his  rushed  together  like  an  alkali  and  an 
acid;  the  voice  of  nature  to  them  was  the  voice  of  God. 
And  Romeo  was  rich  in  having  such  a  jewel,  as  twenty 
seas  if  all  their  sands  were  pearl,  their  water  nectar,  and 
their  rocks  pure  gold.  She  was  his  till  death  did  them 
part. 

As  an  offset  to  Juliet,  we  have  the  great  picture  of  the 
nurse, — crafty  and  vulgar,  garrulous  and  sympathetic,  a 
devoted  family  servant  impatient  of  delay,  knowing  her 
young  mistress'  age  to  an  hour,  "the  prettiest  babe  that 
e'er  she  nursed," .  she  calls  Paris  "a  man  of  wax,"  and 
this  completely  sums  him  up  and  many  others  since  j  her 


ROMEO     AND    JULIET 

own  relations  with'  the  common  Peter  are  far  from  com- 
mendable,, but  she  puts  her  mistress  on  a  pedestal  and 
defends  her  continually.  Rosemary  and  Romeo  have  the 
same  letter,  she  leads  him  on  with  clever  hints  and  sly 
observations, — "my  mistress  is  the  sweetest  lady,  I  anger 
her  sometimes  and  tell  her  Paris  is  the  properer  man," 
she  gets  the  ladder  for  the  eager  Romeo  to  mount  in 
the  garden;  she  apprises  Juliet  of  the  death  of  Tybalt 
and  significantly  says,  the  smooth  dissembler:  "There's 
no  trust,  no  faith,  no  honesty  in  men ;  all  perjured,  all 
forsworn, — give  me  some  aqua  vitae!"  She  unites  her 
cunning  with  the  monk's  wisdom  to  preserve  the  sorrow- 
ing girl.  She  praises  his  learning  with  a  flattering  smile, 
even  a  monk,  she  knows,  is  susceptible.  How  she  simu- 
lates amazement  in  the  morning  when  Juliet  cannot  be 
wakened;  "Why  lamb,  why  lady,  fie  you  slugabed!  What! 
not  a  word?  How  sound  she  is  asleep!  I  needs  must 
wake  her;  Madam,  madam,  madam!  Alas,  alas,  my 
lady's  dead,  O  well  a  day  that  ever  I  was  born !" 

I  know  nothing  in  the  whole  range  of  the  dramatist's 
work  more  perfect  than  this  delineation,  as  true  today  as 
three  centuries  ago. 

Romeo's  first  passion  for  Rosaline  was  a  waking  dream, 
a  fantastic  revery;  his  second  and  real  attachment  was 
a  deep  and  permanent  reality,  he  was  elevated  to  the 
third  heaven,  or  hurried  on  to  abject  despair.  He  is 
Shakespeare's  unlucky  man,  with  the  best  intentions  and 
highest  hopes,  he  is  perpetually  unfortunate,  failing  in 
every  aspiration,  exerting  himself  to  the  utmost  only  to 
fall  anew.  Ill  fortune  marked  him  for  her  own.  He 
was  himself  the  Banquo  at  the  feast.  He  prophesies  his 
own  failure.  Vainly  does  he  try  to  pacify  Tybalt,  vainly 
does  he  decline  the  proffered  duel.  Mercutio  takes  up 
the  abandoned  quarrel  and  Romeo's  ill-omened  interfer- 

99 


SHAKESPEARE    STUDIES 

ence  slays  his  friend.  When  the  dying  Mercutio  asks, 
"Why  the  devil  came  you  between  us?"  he  only  offers 
the  excuse,  "I  thought  all  for  the  best".  He  is  a  victim 
of  stubborn  wilfulness.  Oppressed  by  society,  hateful  to 
him,  of  refined  and  generous  mind,  he  repels  relatives 
and  friends  who  seek  him,  is  disdainful  of  advice,  mel- 
ancholy, laconic,  always  foreboding  the  worst,  his  nature 
blossoms  with  Fate,  his  parents  are  aloof  from  him;  he 
and  Tybalt  stand  like  opposing  crags,  when  he  has  killed 
him  he  cries,  "I  am  fortune's  fool". 

After  Juliet's  death  he  burns  with  a  grand  defiance, 
and  it  is  this  event  that  rouses  the  embers  of  his  latent 
courage.  He  is  banished  by  the  duke  and  is  wholly 
crushed,  while  Juliet  rises  to  the  emergency  like  a  true 
woman;  and  not  only  comforts  but  commands  him.  He 
is  steeped  in  love  as  Hamlet  in  meditation ;  a  man  of  the 
soft  and  sunny  south.  He  cannot  maintain  his  will  in 
successive  disasters;  he  is  Hamlet  in  love.  He  involves 
others  in  his  ruin;  he  is  a  creature  of  haste;  he  dies  by 
poison  and  even  then  in  a  hurry.  If  less  in  a  hurry  he 
might  have  lived, — he  leaves  all  to  heaven,  and  falls.  He 
trusts  the  flattering  truth  of  sleep,  when  Juliet's  body 
sleeps  in  Capulet's  tomb  he  cries,  "I  defy  you  stars !"  For 
forty  ducats  he  buys  a  dram  of  poison  and,  against  the 
law,  tells  the  poor  apothecary, — "The  world  is  not  thy 
friend,  nor  the  world's  law ;  the  world  affords  no  law 
to  make  thee  rich;  then  be  not  poor  but  break  it  and 
take  this."  "There  is  thy  gold,  worse  poison  to  men's 
souls." 

At  the  tomb  he  rises  into  majesty,  the  former  man  is 
transformed,  Paris  intrudes  and  Romeo  slays  him;  he 
utters  a  grand  eulogy  on  the  dead  girl;  "O  my  love,  my 
wife,  death  that  hath  sucked  the  honey  of  thy  breath 
hath  had  no  power  yet  upon  thy  beauty;  thou  art  not 


100 


ROMEO    AND    JULIET 

conquered,  beauty's  ensign  yet  is  crimson  in  thy  lips  and 
in  thy  cheeks;  and  death's  pale  flag  is  not  advanced 
there;  I  never  from  this  palace  of  dim  night  depart  again ; 
here,  here  will  I  remain  with  worms  that  are  thy  cham- 
bermaids; O  here  will  I  set  up  my  everlasting  rest  and 
shake  the  yoke  of  inauspicious  stars  from  this  world- 
wearied  flesh;  eyes  look  your  last!  arms  take  your  last 
embrace !  and  lips,  O  you,  the  doors  of  breath,  seal  with 
a  righteous  kiss  a  dateless  bargain  to  engrossing  death; 
here's  to  my  love!  O  true  apothecary!  thy  drugs  arc 
quick, — thus  with  a  kiss  1  die." 

Juliet  faintly  hears  and  rouses  herself  in  the  tomb.  She 
kisses  him.  Then  she  snatches  his  dagger  and  falls  life- 
less on  his  lifeless  form.  Friar  Laurence  tells  us  all; 
the  riddle  is  solved ;  he  reproaches  Capulet  and  Montague 
for  their  ancient  feud;  they  join  hands;  Juliet  is  to  have 
a  golden  statue;  Romeo  shall  be  laid  at  her  side,  "a 
gloomy  peace  this  morning  brings,  for  never  was  a  story 
of  more  woe  than  this  of  Juliet  £.nd  Romeo." 

Byron  sang,. "Man's  ^ve  is  of  his  life  a  thing  apart; 
'tis  woman's  whole  existence".  Shakespeare's  men  are 
studies  and  they  grow ;  his  women  are  quickly  trans- 
formed and  seem  immediate  creations.  The  great  orchard 
scene  is  the  loveliest  in  al\  literature.  She  will  be  his, 
"a  rose  by  any  other  name  would  smell  as  sweet." 

Mercutio  is  a  great  masterpiece,  a  man  of  little  culture, 
rude  and  ugly,  scornful  of  love,  despising  dreams'  and  all 
presentiments,  gifted  with  extraordinary  wit,  perceiving 
the  humorous  in  all  things,  even  dying  he-  jokes  with  his 
last  breath.  In  the  scene  with  Benvolio  he  predicts  that 
with  such  a  foe  he  would  not  live  an  hour;  and  this 
prediction  is  soon  fulfilled  with  Tybalt.  His  great  tribute 
to  sleep  is\  well  known  and  matchless ;  aO  then  I  see 
Queen  Mab  hath  been  with  you ;  she  is  the  fairies'  mid- 


I0f 


SHAKESPEARE    STUDIES 

wife  and  she  comes  in  shape  no  bigger  than  an  agate 
stone,  on  the  fore  finger  of  an  alderman;  drawn  with 
a  team  of  little  atomies  athwart  men's  noses  as  they  lie 
asleep;  her  waggon  spokes  made  of  long  spinner's  legs, 
the  cover  of  the  wings  of  grasshoppers;  the  traces  of 
the  smallest  spider's  web,  the  collars  of  the  moonshine's 
watery  beams,  her  whip  of  cricket's  bone,  the  lash  of 
film,  her  waggoner  a  small  grey  coated  gnat,  not  half  so 
big  as  a  round  little  worm  pricked  from  the  lazy  finger 
of  a  maid ;  her  chariot  is  an  empty  hazel-nut,  made  by  the 
joiner  squirrel  or  old  grub;  and  in  this  state  she  gallops 
night  by  night,  through  lover's  brains  and  then  they  dream 
of  love;  o'er  courtiers'  knees  that  drearn  on  courtesies 
straight ;  o'er  lawyers'  fingers  who  straight  dream  on  fees  ; 
o'er  ladies'  lips  who  straight  on  kisses  dream ;  sometimes 
comes  she  with  a  tithe  pig's  tail  tickling  a  parson's  nose 
as  lies  asleep,  then  dreams  he  of  another  benefice,  some- 
times she  driveth  o'er  a  soldier's  neck  and  then  dreams  he 
of  cutting  foreign  throats,  of  breaches,  ambuscades, 
Spanish  blades,  of  healths  fivejigithom  deep; — I  talk  of 
dreams  which  are  the  children  of  an  idle  brain,  begot  of 
nothing  but  vain  fantasy ;  as  thin  of  substance  as  the  air, 
and  more  inconstant  than  the  wind."  This  wonderful 
whimsicality  and  grotesque  raillery  have  always  com- 
manded the  admiration  of  readers. 

An  old  smoky  tavern  is  now  said  to  stand  upon  the 
palace  of  the  Capulets  and  at  the  end  of  the  courtyard  the 
lovers  are  said  to  lie.  Thousands  go  thither  each  year. 
Such  is  the  immortality  of  genius. 

This  play  gives  love  as  God  made  it.  It  depicts  a  piti- 
less struggle  against  evil  destiny.  The  Friar  says,  "A 
greater  Power  than  we  can  contradict  hath  thwarted  our 
plans  for  safety."  "We  cannot  accuse  any  blind  fate 
for  it  is  tumultuous  nature  alone  which  shattered  the 

102 


ROMEO    AND    JULIET 

helm."  Over  the  grave  of  the  ill-starred  pair  all  feud  and 
dissension  disappear  and  peace  is  finally  restored  to  the 
long-disturbed  city. 

The  play  is  not  so  flawless  as  A  Midsummer  Night's 
Dream,  nor  so  harmonious.  But  it  is  the  great  and 
typical  love  story  of  the  world.  It  rises  far  above  all 
attempts  to  supercede  it.  It  was  done  in  Shakespeare's 
adolescence,  before  he  has  seen  the  sear,  the  yellow  leaf ; 
it  reflects  the  exuberant  passion  and  ardor  and  daring  of 
the  young  man ;  it  is  a  fine  contrast  to  his  second  tragedy, 
Hamlet;  the  heroes  are  precisely  opposite  in  all  respects ; 
in  Hamlet  love  is  disappointed,  in  Romeo  love  is  fully 
satisfied ;  Hamlet's  friend,  Horatio,  is  grave,  well-balanced 
and  strong;  Romeo's  friend,  Mercutio,  is  all  brilliance, 
wit,  effervescence  of  spirit;  poor  Ophelia,  crazed,  seeks 
a  muddy  death ;  Juliet  passionately  desires  an  end  to  all 
her  misadventures;  both  Hamlet  and  Romeo  are  whirled 
along  the  tide  of  destiny  like  leaves  on  a  stream.  Neither 
can  rule  his  events,^^  ^  ^ 

We  feel,  all  througlA|ae  nve  acts,  a  thunder-storm 
brooding;  a  pall  of  Nemesis  hangs  above  us;  nature  is 
exactly  adapted  to  the  action,  for  it  is  her  languorous 
and  heated  season  when  each  hour  is  high-colored  and 
intense.  Shakespeare  always  uses  external  nature  as  the 
medium  and  milieu  of  human  passion.  In  King  Lear, 
we  have  terrible  storm,  and  wind,  and  rain,  and  flood, 
and  all  nature  is  convulsed.  In  Macbeth,  Duncan 
unsuspiciously  enters  the  castle,  lulled  by  the  martlet- 
haunted  portals  and  the  sweet-scented  air;  in  Julius 
Caesar  the  central  figure  of  the  world  falls  after  a  night 
of  prodigy  and  portent  when  even  graves  were  mysteri- 
ously disturbed;  in  The  Merchant  of  Venice,  Lorenzo 
and  Jessica  sing  their  love  strains  under  a  star-sown  sky, 
every  orb  in  which  is  quiring  to  young-eyed  cherubims, 

103 


SHAKESPEARE    STUDIES 

while  the  moonlight  sleeps  upon  the  verdant  bank ;  in  As 
You  Like  It,  the  deer  approaches  the  pool,  Jacques 
reclines  on  a  grassy  couch,  the  pines  drop  their  slender 
needles,  and  adversity  itself  is  soothed  by  green  haunts 
and  woody  shades  and  mysterious  elves ;  in  Pericles, 
the  water  ever  utters  its  tender  tones  of  monition  and 
complaint;  in  The  Tempest,  it  is  the  scented  isle  of 
enchantment  that  prepares  us  for  Prospero  and  Ariel  and 
Miranda  and  the  flitting  spirits  that  throng  the  sky. 

The  great  dramatist  once  said  that  "the  lunatic,  the 
lover,  and  the  poet  are  of  imagination  all  compact." 
In  Romeo's  nature  the  emotional  atmosphere  is  more 
important  than  the  reality  itself,  he  walks  in  a  world  of 
fancy,  while  Juliet  lives  far  from  the  golden  haze  of 
enchanting  ecstasy  and  is  alarmed  by  the  excess  of  delight. 
He  is  never  fully  delivered  from  his  self-consciousness; 
Juliet,  on  the  contrary,  is  self-possessed  in  every  act. 

Shakespeare  never  gave  us  the  development  of  a 
woman's  soul,  no  Rorp  A.  n^|Mag^^  nor  Dorothea.  If 
we  except  Cleopatra,  his  vtomejAre  not  a  complexity  of 
faculties  like  his  men ;  he  venercrted  the  feminine  element 
of  humanity  as  the  higher  and  the  more  divine.  It  is 

Juliet  who  takes  the  lead  and  proposes  and  urges  the 
sudden  marriage.  She  is  eager  that  the  deed  should  be 
quick  and  irreversible.  She  never  had  an  adviser  or 
sustainer.  Her  mother  is  a  proud  Italian  matron  who 
had  not  married  for  love,  and  whose  nature  is  cold  and 
deadly. 

One  of  the  first  lessons  of  this  tragedy  is  that  every 
^  strong  emotion  which  exalts  the  life  of  man  also  exposes 

*   the  entire  life  to  increased  risk. 

One  sometimes  enquires  which  of  Shakespeare's  women 
he  loved  the  best.  Was  it  Perdita  who  never  knew  a 
sorrow,  with  the  flowers  and  field  air  about  her?  Was 

104 


ROMEO    AND    JULIET 

it  Miranda,  the  child  of  nature,  in  her  heavenly  isle  listen- 
ing to  songs  celestial,  and  watching  that  wand  that  could 
evoke  spirits  from  the  vasty  deep?  Was  it  Cleopatra,  the 
gorgeously  robed  and  intoxicating  queen,  in  her  barge 
of  burnished  gold  ?  Was  it  Lady  Macbeth,  that  amazing 
combination  of  energy,  self-control,  and  desperate  resort? 
Was  it  fair  Ophelia,  bringing  her  flowers  and  pining  away, 
— too  fragile  for  earth?  Was  it  Portia  in  her  majesty 
and  truth,  the  loveliest  judge  in  all  the  world?  Was  it 
Desdemona,  the  true,  dying  like  the  swan  and  the  victim 
of  unfounded  jealousy?  Was  it  Cordelia,  regal  and 
faithful,  and  the  rarest  daughter  ever  painted?  Was  it 
Katherine,  the  womanly,  resenting  the  haughty  Cardinal? 
Was  it  Hermoine,  the  calm  and  forgiving  wife,  who  saved 
her  foolish  husband  and  redeemed  his  better  self?  Was 
it  Cressida,  the  light  bubble  of  vanity  and  grace  without 
depth  or  purpose?  Was  it  Isabella,  the  embodiment  of 
conscience,  or  Helena,  the  embodiment  of  will? 

And  why  should  we  concern  ourselves  about  the  love 
of  a  boy  and  girl  six  hundred  years  ago  in  Verona? 
What  makes  this  play  perpetually  attractive,  year  after 
year?  Is  it  not  that  in  the  development  of  their  joy  and 
pain  we  see  the  powers  that  stir  all  animated  nature,  the 
shadow  of  a  great  law  that  bounds  all  human  desire  and 
delight? 

Had  Romeo  been  a  little  less  impetuous  and  Juliet  a 
little  more  prudent,  had  they  been  ceremoniously  married 
in  some  fashionable  church,  had  they  begun  life  Jn  a 
handsome  establishment,  our  interest  in  them  would  surely 
wane.  They  were  violent  and  hare-brained  and  foolish ; 
hence  we  love  them.  They  prove  that  "all  the  world  loves 
a  lover,"  that  the  choice  they  made  in  the  face  of  death 
is  an  emblem  of  the  great  law  of  sacrifice,  old  as  the 
world  itself,  and  lifting  our  prosaic  existence  above  the 
market-place  and  counting-house. 

105 


SHAKESPEARE    STUDIES 

Only  five  days  are  sufficient  to  carry  the  ill-starred 
couple  from  the  heights  of  rapture  to  the  grave  of  despair. 
It  is  the  sublime  principle  of  atonement  that  the  dramatist 
would  emphasize.  Lovely  in  their  lives,  in  their  death 
they  are  not  divided.  The  grave  cannot  part  two  such 
devoted  hearts. 

Contrast  the  perfect  purity  of  Juliet  throughout  all  the 
many  scenes,  with  the  bold  audacity  and  unwomanly 
coarseness  that  deface  the  creations  of  some  recent  play- 
wrights whose  names  are  blazoned  in  the  press.  The 
tenderest  girl  can  see  this  great  tragedy  without  a  blush. 
It  is  true  to  the  higher  nature,  not  false  to  virgin  modesty 
and  maidenly -repose.  Thus  we  have  purity  of  heart  and 
imaginative  ardor  united  with  sweetness  and  dignity  of 
manner;  passionate  violence  with  simplicity  and  truth. 
IvThere  is  nothing  coy  nor  coquettish  nor  affected;  it  is 
V  frank,  for  there  are  no  thoughts  to  conceal.  Innocence 
]  reposes  in  strength,  on  affection;  delicacy  does  not 
\  consist  of  coldness  and  reserve,  but  of  warmth  and  glow 
|  and  voluptuous  sensibility. 

When  Edmund  Kean  delivered  the  soliloquy  at  the 
tomb,  the  whole  house  rose.  A  century  ago  Helen  Faucit 
fascinated  Londoners  with  her  wonderful  rendition  of 
Juliet.  It  is  not  strange  that  this  old  love  tale  should  be 
the  perpetual  standard  in  fiction  for  the  naturalness  and 
unaffectedness  of  love  in  its  truer  notes.  We  uncon- 
sciously measure  the  novel  of  affection  by  this  great 
norm.  Scott  said  that  woman  is  like  ivy,  the  greater  the 
ruin  the  closer  she  clings.  Juliet  was  such  a  woman. 
Romeo,  banished,  was  but  made  the  dearer,  exiled  by 
the  state  and  sought  by  the  law,  a  bounty  on  his  head 
and  deprived  of  all  honor,  she  clung  the  closer,  as  the 
storm  descended  and  the  floods  fell.  What  God  had 
joined  together  no  force  could  put  asunder. 

106 


ROMEO     AND    JULIET 

The  play  is  a  splendid  tribute  to  constancy  and  marital 
purity  and  unchanging  attachment.  It  is  a  fadeless  ser- 
mon from  age  to  age,  never  more  needed  than  now. 

Do  we  rule  our  destiny,  or  does  our  destiny  rule  us?^* 
This  is  an  old  theme  for  debate.     Romeo  and  Juliet  seem,  / 
from  the  very  start,  the  heirs  of  misfortune,  each  strug-/ 
gles  ineffectually  against  overwhelming  odds.    Some  stu- ) 
pendous  power  overrules  the  play,  it  is  like  Macbeth  in 
the  interplay  of  supernatural  forces,  the  old  conception 
o£  the  influence  of  the    stars    on    man's  career  is  here 
in  all  its  force.     We  have  the  star-crossed  lovers  in  the 
prologue,  earthquakes  are  noted,  the  mind  misgives  some 
consequence  yet  hanging  in  the  stars,  the  boat  is  tossed, 
yet  God  directs  its  course,  "this  day's  black  fate  on  more 
days  doth  depend,  this  but  begins  the  woe  others  must 
end."     Romeo  is  fortune's  fool,  he  cries,  "more  light  and  ] 
light;   more   dark   and   dark   our  woes!"     Dry   sorrow 
drinks  the  blood,  and  the  tragedy  ends  in  a  cataclysm  of 

in. 

The  dramatist  teaches  that  there's  a  "divinity  doth 
shape  our  ends  rough  hew  them  how  he  will.'**  Prospero, 

in  ^frg Tempest,    is    Providence    watching    the    game 

played  by  Miranda  and  the  Duke,  and  directing  the 
moves.  Hamlet  oscillates  like  a  pendulum  between  fate 
and  free  will,  uttering  magnificent  soliloquies  on  destiny, 
and  swaying  like  a  balloon  in  the  presence  of  the  super- 
natural. Macbeth  feels  himself  a  chip  on  the  tide  of 
irresistible  Nemesis  and  goes  down  in  the  awful  flood. 
Wherever  in  all  his  many  works,  man  opposes  the  moral 
law  written  in  the  heart,  he  succumbs  to  a  power  that 
he  cannot  defy,  for  Shakespeare  was  a  profound  believer 
in  the  basal  truths  that  neither  time  nor  place  nor  custom 
can  disregard. 

107 


SHAKESPEARE    STUDIES 

Much  is  now  said  of  the  higher  law,  but  the  higher 
law  in  Shakespeare  is  the  divine  mandate  uttered  on  Sinai 
and  still  echoing  through  the  world.  And  this  great 
tragedy  teaches  the  need  of  moderation.  Romeo  and 
f  Juliet  loved  "not  wisely  but  too  well."  What  a  contrast 
was  their  feverish  attachment  to  the  union  of  Brutus  and 
Portia,  steady  as  the  pull  of  the  moon  on  the  tides,  resist- 
ing every  turn  of  misfortune,  most  powerful  in  disaster, 
the  ideal  wedlock  of  a  strong  and  devoted  man  and  a 
faithful  and  sagacious  woman.  As  Shakespeare  grew  in 
years  and  wisdom,  he  left  his  youthful  creations  and 
perceived  the  underlying  principle  that  must  ennoble  and 
preserve  the  tender  passion  to  make  it  enduring  and  true. 
"These  violent  delights  have  violent  ends,  and  in  their 
triumph  die,  like  fire  and  powder,  which,  as  they  kiss, 
consume;  the  'sweetest  honey  is  loathsome  in  his  own 
deliciousness  and  in  the  taste  confounds  the  appetite, — 
therefore  love  moderately;  long  love  doth  so;  too  swift 
arrives  as  tardy  as  too  slow. " 


108 


OTHELLO 

—  BY  — 

F.    HYATT  SMITH 


OTHELLO 

S  Hamlet  is  the  tragedy  of  the  will,  Othello  is  the 
tragedy  of  the  emotions.  The,  story  was  taken 
from  a  work  of  Giraldi  Cinthio  published  in  Sicily 
in  1565.  Shakespeare  enlarged  this  plot  and  robed  it  in 
beauty.  We  are  in  the  period  of  Venetian  supremacy 
when  the  island  of  Cyprus  was  a  dependence  of  that  great 
republic.  The  first  act  only  is  set  in  Venice ;  the  remain- 
ing acts  are  placed  in  Cyprus.  The  time  element  has 
caused  much  perplexity ;  but  the  general  consensus  gives 
three  days  for  the  action;  the  first  day  for  Act  I,  the 
second  day  for  Act  II,  and  the  third  day  for  the  catas- 
trophe. The  conflict  does  not  arrive  until  the  last  scene 
of  the  first  Act ;  in  the  first  half  of  the  play  the  main  con- 
flict is  developing  and  then  goes  hurrying  on  to  its  close. 
The  highest  pathos  comes  in  Act  II,  scene  3,  on  the  eve 
of  the  catastrophe.  The  construction  is  unique  for  the 
murder  is  a  long  distance  from  Othello's  death. 

Shakespearean  tragedy  may  present  many  persons,  but 
is  primarily  concerned  with  but  one.  It  is  a  tale  of 
suffering  usually  leading  to  the  hero's  death.  The  hero 
is  always  a  prominent  person;  the  calamities  come  from 
actions ;  men  are  the  authors  of  their  woe ;  character 
developes  action;  madness  is  seldom  inherent,  but  de- 
veloped ;  the  supernatural  usually  appears ;  chance  or  ac- 
cident have  an  influence  at  some  point;  men  start  events 
that  they  cannot  control ;  there  are  often  antagonistic 
groups  and  plots;  the  hero  seems  predisposed  in  some 
way  and  incapable  of  resistance ;  only  Richard  and  Mac- 
beth do  villainous  wrong  and  know  it ;  we  always  mourn 
the  waste  of  opportunity,  this  is  the  tragedy's  mystery; 
Shakespeare  painted  the  world  as  he  saw  it,  not  as  he 

in 


SHAKESPEARE    STUDIES 

would  have  liked  it  to  be.     Ghosts  and  God  and  hell 
appear,  but  never  shed  light  on  the  mystery. 

The  dramatist  never  gives  us  his  own  opinion.  The 
final  power  is  more  than  Fate;  men  are  responsible;  the 
doer  suffers ;  moral  order  rules  the  world ;  the  main 
source  of  the  catastrophe  is  evil. 

Shakespeare  never,  like  Milton,  "justifies  the  ways  of 
God  to  man";  the  world  moves  on  to  perfection,  but 
evolves  evil  that  is  only  overcome  by  torture  and  waste. 
Every  tragedy  has  three  parts :  the  first  is  the  exposition 
or  state  of  affairs;  then  the  beginning  or  growth  of  the 
conflict;  the  final  section  is  the  issue  in  catastrophe. 
The  outward  conflict  first  attracts  attention;  then  the 
inward.  The  great  crisis  usually  comes  in  the  middle 
of  the  play :  in  Julius  Caesar  it  .is  the  assassination ;  in 
Hamlet  it  is  the  play  scene;  in  Othello  it  is  the  3d  scene 
of  the  3d  act.  Shakespeare  knew  the  rules  of  tragedy, 
but  often  broke  them.  He  had  his  moods,  and  fre- 
quently was  hasty  and  careless  as  Milton  and  Tennyson 
never  were.  He  was  between  thirty-seven  and  forty-four 
and  musing  on  the  miseries  of  life.  The  style  of  Othello 
is  similar  to  that  of  Julius  Caesar;  weighty  and  solemn. 
'"The  play  is  one  of  the  longest,  containing  over  three 
thousand  lines.  Three  actions  are  in  force  before  the 
beginning  of  this  play:  Bianca's  relations  with  Cassio, 
Roderigo's  pursuit  of  Desdemona,  and  the  love  of  Othello 
and  Desdemona.  In  the  play  lago  is  the  centre  of  f c  ur 
intrigues:  against  Roderigo  to  get  money  from  him  ~nd 
destroy  him;  against  Cassio  to  get  his  place;  agi  t 
Cassio  to  kill  him;  and  against  Othello. 

The  play  opens  with  an  admirable  preparation  of 
Roderigo  as  lago's  first  dupe.  The  contrast  of  the  pre- 
cipitation of  the  one  with  the  coolness  of  the  other  is 
a  happy  stroke.  The  Duke  appears  and  Othello  defends 

112 


OTHELLO 

himself  in  a  grand  speech,  before  him  and  the  council. 
Desdemona  perceives  a  double  duty;  Brabantio  yields, 
Desdemona  saw  Othello's  visage  in  his  mind,  and  to  him 
did  consecrate  her  soul  and  fortunes.  The  speech  dis- 
closes moral  strength.  In  confidence  Othello  leaves  his 
bride  to  the  care  of  his  lieutenant. 

Then  follows  the  great  dialogue  between  lago  and 
Roderigo.  Here  the  villain  discloses  his  utter  lack  of 
faith,  his  contempt  for  all  virtue,  his  avarice  and  hypo- 
crisy. "Virtue!  a  fig!  'tis  in  ourselves  that  we  are  thus 
or  thus.  Love  is  but  a  lust  of  the  blood,  a  permission 
of  the  will.  Put  money  in  thy  purse,  put  money  in  thy 
purse!"  "Desdemona,"  he  says  "will  repent  of  her 
choice;  these  Moors  are  changeable  in  their  wills."  And 
the  act  closes  with  his  great  soliloquy :  "he  holds  me  well, 
the  better  shall  my  purpose  work  on  him;  the  Moor  is 
of  a  free  and  open  nature,  and  as  will  tenderly  be  led 
by  the  nose  as  asses  are;  I  have  it:  it's  engendered:  hell 
and  night  must  bring  this  monstrous  birth  to  light."  Few 
who  heard  Edwin  Booth  deliver  those  awful  lines  can 
ever  forget  them. 

In  Act  II  we  are  in  Cyprus.  Our  fears  are  rising;  the 
first  scene  appropriately  opens  with  a  storm,  as  before  all 
of  Shakespeare's  conflicts,  this  foreshadows  the  storm  of 
Desdemona's  misfortunes.  lago,  Desdemona  and  Emilia 
converse:  the  cynic,  the  angel  and  the  common  woman. 
Desdemona  seems  to  apprehend  the  portent  of  disaster, 
"I  am  not  merry" ;  lago  watches  Cassio  take  Desdemona's 

:\d — "with  as  little  a  web  as  this  will  I  ensnare  as 
great  a  fly  as  Cassio."  The  entrance  of  Othello  shows 
his  measureless  faith  in  his  wife.  It  is  a  noble  picture, 
Adam  and  Eve  before  the  fall.  The  serpent  sees  and 
notes  it  aside.  Now  he  winds  Roderigo  in  his  silken 
skein,  sows  doubts  of  Desdemona's  honor  in  his  mind, 

113 


SHAKESPEARE    STUDIES 

"watch  you  tonight!"  The  forces  of  hell  are  gathering. 
Othello  is  welcomed  with  a  bonfire  and  great  celebrations ; 
lago  makes  poor  Cassio  drunk — he  is  Faust  in  the  clutch 
of  Mephistophelesv.  In  lago's  song  "Let  me  the  cannakin 
clink, — a  soldier's  a  man,  a  life's  but  a  span, — why  then 
let  a  soldier  drink" — we  have  the  grin  of  a  death's  head. 

A  quarrel  ensues;  Montano  is  wounded,  from  inciter 
of  the  brawl  lago  changes  like  a  chameleon  to  the  de- 
fender of  order.  Othello  calms  the  disturbance.  Cassio 
is  reduced  from  his  rank  and  lago  wins  his  first  design. 
Cassio  has  lost  his  reputation, — the  immortal  part,— with 
the  cry  of  a  wounded  spirit,  he  comes  to  himself,  noth- 
ing more  plainly  shows  his  open  nature  in  contrast  with 
lago's  duplicity  than  the  cry — "O  thpu  invisible  spirit  of 
wine,  if  thou  hast  no  name  to  be  known  by,  let  us  call 
thee  devil !"  lago  skillfully  suggests  to  the  broken  man 
to  importune  Desdemona  for  his  reinstating  and  thus 
another  seed  of  jealousy  is  sown.  The  soliloquy  that 
follows  matches  the  very  hues  of  hell:  "I'll  pour  this 
pestilence  in  his  ear ;  so  will  I  turn  her  virtue  into  pitch, 
and  out  of  her  own  goodness  make  the  net  that  shall  en- 
mesh them  all." 

Shakespeare's  women  are  a  world  in  themselves. 
Portia,  grave  and  discerning  and  the  embodiment  of 
mercy ;  Rosalind,  with  her  true  heart  and  silvery  laugh ; 
Cordelia,  the  beauty  of  holiness  and  the  apocalypse  of 
daughterly  devotion;  Hermione,  the  queen,  mother  and 
wife,  calm  as  a  sunset  and  as  lovely;  Imogen,  the  union 
of  simplicity  and  enthusiasm ;  Juliet,  the  symbol  of  ardent 
and  unreflecting  love;  Cleopatra,  the  gorgeous  and  en- 
chanting child  of  the  Orient;  Katherine,  whose  simple 
truth  was  no  match  for  the  wily  Cardinal ;  Lady  Macbeth, 
the  very  incarnation  of  designing  power,  masterly  con- 
trol and  murdeous  hate,  from  whose  palm  "the  damned 
spots  will  not  out." 

114 


OTHELLO 

None  of  these  resembles  Desdemona,  unless  it  be  Juliet, 
in  her  trustfulness,  her  inability  to  reason,  her  injured  and 
defenceless  innocence,  her  artless  devotion  and  predis- 
position to  wonder,  and  her  surprising  union  with  a  dark 
native  of  another  race.  Desdemona  is  simple  and  lovely, 
the  preordained  victim  of  the  fiend,  a  maiden  never  bold, 
she  suffers  more  than  Imogen,  sweetest  of  Shakespeare's 
women  and  as  innocent  as  Miranda, — a  child  of  nature, 
she  knows  evil  by  name  only,  she  has  little  recollection 
and  a  grain  of  superstition,  she  makes  no  reply  to 
Othello's  awful  charges,  she  shows  her  womanliness  when 
she  defends  her  choice  to  her  father, — she  coyly  deceives 
her  father  in  her  marriage,  and  this  gives  the  basis  for 
Othello's  fear. 

CSfte.  was  easily  captivated  by  the  stories  of  the  brave 
ano~soldierly  Moor,  sentiment  and  metaphysics  mingled 
in  her  courtship,  gentleness  is  the  prevailing  tone  of  her 
nature.  There  is  too  little  energy  and  too  little  reflection ; 
she  is  a  passive  character;  she  easily  believes  that  the 
fated  handkerchief  was  a  talisman ;  softly  credulous  was 
she;  a  sweet  nature,  she  had  little  moral  energy,  like 
Hermione,  who  defied  the  charges  of  infidelity, — she  is 
so  innocent  that  she  cannot  understand  guilt  in  others; 
accusation  stuns,  but  does  not  rouse  her;  she  makes  no 
defence,  her  love  was  her  religion. 

Never  does  she  upbraid,  nor  bitterly  deny ;  words  with 
her  denote  sentiment  and  not  reason;  she  was  led  as  a 
lamb  to  the  slaughter,  and  "as  a  sheep  before  her  shearers 
is  dumb  so  she  opened  not  her  mouth."  Emilia  is  her 
exact  opposite,  as  lago's  wife  she  is  common,  vulgar, 
blunt;  she  parts  with  the  handkerchief  without  protest, 
she  is  stupid,  till  the  very  last  careless  of  her  own  life, 
and  after  the  murder,  transfigured  by  her  bravery,  she 
redeems  her  mistake. 


SHAKESPEARE    STUDIES 

Othello  is  a  grand  and  romantic  man,  noble,  tender  and 
generous,  not  easily  jealous,  but  being  wrought,  perplexed 
in  the  extreme,  not  a  converted  barbarian,  but  a  royal, 
mysterious  man.  He  lacks  Hamlet's  speculative  imagina- 
tion, love  crowns  his  success.  Of  simple  mind,  he  is 
dulled  by  devotion,  absolutely  trustful  and  determined 
on  revenge,  he  puts  entire  confidence  in  lago.  His  great 
agony  is  not  due  to  jealousy,  but  is  caused  by  the  belief 
that  hi&  angel  is  impure.  He  struggles  like  Laocoon  in 
the  serpent's  coils;  he  is  the  author  of  his  own  fate;  a 
military  man,  he  would  take  the  life  of  the  guilty.  He 
is  the  most  greatly  drawn  and  most  heroic  of  the  dra- 
matist's characters.  His  passion,  like  a  flood,  overflows 
all  restraints  until  it  issues  in  the  awful  murder,  but  even 
here  he  is  a  priest  at  a  sacrificial  altar.  He  has  as  much 
energy  as  Hamlet  has  indecision;  his  repentant  sorrow 
is  the  roar  of  outraged  friendship,  mingled  with  the 
pathos  of  a  soul  almost  dissolved.  He  does  not  trust 
lago  at  once ;  only  when  he  thinks  the  evidence  indisput- 
able does  he  yield.  He  is  not  vindictive.  When  desolate 
and  despairing,  with  the  blind  hope  of  an  anguished  man, 
he  clutches  at  his  last  possession, — his  honor,  which  he 
thinks  demands  the  sacrifice  of  Desdemona  and  Cassio. 
We  see  a  grand  and  lordly  nature  writhing  to  death,  fitting 
material  for  destruction  in  the  hands  of  the  most  con- 
summate villain  in  all  literature. 

Ruskin  said  of  the  serpent  that  it  "is  passive  to  the  sun 
and  shade,  and  is  cold  or  hot  like  a  stone ;  it  can  outclimb 
the  monkey,  outswim  the  fish,  outleap  the  zebra,  out- 
wrestle  the  athlete,  and  crush  the  tiger."  Such  is  lago, 
the  intellect  divorced  from  all  morals.  He  is  intense, 
subtle,  malignant,  audacious,  cynical,  sneering,  an  Italian 
devil,  worse  than  Richard  and  Milton's  Satan,  only 
rivalled  by  Goethe's  Mephistopheles. 

116 


OTHELLO 

He  revels  in  danger ;  is  a  great  egotist ;  of  supreme  in- 
tellectual power,  he  stands  outside  the  moral  world.  He 
is  incapable  of  goodness;  suspicious  of  his  wife,  without 
feeling,  defying  torture,  hating  superiority  in  others;  he 
is  will  in  intellect,  as  Hamlet  is  intellect  destroying  will. 

He  sneers  at  women  (indeed  all  sarcasms  in  Shakes-  ^ 
peare  against  women  come  from  villains) — lago  "is  noth- 
ing if  not  critical,"  and  thus  a  warning  to  all ;  he  is  Judas 
and  Pilate  combined.     He  is  the  really  jealous  man  in  /^ 
the  play  and  the  man  who  has  no  aim  in  life  but  his  own 
advantage.     Thus  the  play  revolves  about  a  princely  man, 
a  guileless  angel,  and  an  incredible  fiend. 

Act  III  is  the  spectacle  of  a  fast  gathering  storm. 
Shakespeare  well  introduces  it  by  buffoonery,  or  we  could 
not  endure  the  suspense.  We  have  the  last  scene  of 
Othello's  happiness.  Desdemona  promises  to  intercede 
for  Cassio  and  thus  weaves  a  web  about  herself.  The 
catastrophe  is  now  hinted  at  in  lago's — "Ha,  I  like  not 
that,"  to  Othello. 

At  first  he  is  vague,  and  dimly  suggestive ;  then  dis- 
quieting,— "Did  Michael  Cassio  when  you  wooed  your 
lady  know  of  your  love?"  "Indeed,  is  he  not  honest?" 
"Men  should  be  what  they  seem,  or  those  that  be  not, 
would  they  might  seem  none."  "Good  name  in  man  or 
woman,  dear  my  lord," — "O  beware,  my  lord,  of  jeal- 
ousy,"— thus  the  artful  spider  enmeshes  his  victim  in  the 
ever-widening  web.  Sometimes  there  flashes  a  line  of 
great  truth,  hinting  a  nature  not  wholly  lost:  as  "poor y 
and  content  is  rich  and  rich  enough." 

But  Othello's  fears  are  roused  when  lago  suggests,— 
"she  did  deceive  her  father  marrying  you."  This  lays 
the  track  for  the  powder.  Desdemona  now  gives  Othello 
the  fated  handkerchief  to  cool  his  fevered  head,  he  drops 
it,  O  fatal  act !  Emilia  picks  it  up.  lago  has  asked  for 
this ;  she  will  give  it  to  him.  He  loses  it  in  Cassio's  room. 

117 


SHAKESPEARE    STUDIES 

Othello  enters,  and  his  mournful  desolation  rivals  that 
of  Hamlet, — "farewell  the  tranquil  mind !"  No  grander 
pathos  can  be  found  in  all  Shakespeare  than  these  lines, 
the  cracking  of  a  trusting  heart.  "Othello's  occupation's 
gone!"  Here  Salvini  raged  like  an  infuriated  lion,  and 
Booth,  as  lago,  was  the  incarnation  of  malignity  and 
hellish  suggestion.  It  was  an  awful  scene  that  often 
made  the  hearers  faint. 

Othello  is  now  between  Scylla  and  Charybdis :  love  for 
his  wife  and  belief  in  his  lieutenant.  Even  dreams  in- 
vented by  lago  rouse  him  on, — "I'll  tear  her  all  to  pieces !" 
—the  handkerchief  serves  as  proof,  on  such  simple  things 
do  life's  tragedies  depend, — and  the  two  men  drop  on 
their  knees  and  swear  to  the  stars  above  to  be  true  and 
devoted  in  the  detection  of  the  suspected  crime,  and 
Othello's  soul  is  sold. 

In  the  tender  scene  that  follows,  Desdemona  is  shown 
wholly  unconscious  of  her  coming  doom.  Othello  then 
enters.  He  feels  of  her  hand,  and  when  he  says  it  is 
hot  and  moist  she  innocently  replies,  ' 'twas  that  hand 
that  gave  away  my  heart."  She  is  terrified  by  the  mystic 
value  of  the  lost  handkerchief  that  a  sybil  sewed  in 
prophetic  fury.  lago  now  sees  Cassio  importune  her  for 
her  influence  with  her  husband.  She  defends  Othello's 
strange  behavior  with  unsuspecting  eagerness.  Bianca 
appears,  and  Cassio  gives  his  mistress  the  fated  handker- 
chief to  take  the  work  out. 

Act  IV  is  the  great  catastrophe  of  the  play.  lago  com- 
bines all  earlier  proof,  Othello  says  "she  shall  not  live" ; 
he  swoons  at  lago's  confessions  of  Cassio's  intrigue ;  lago 
cries  "Work  on,  my  medicine!"  Othello  rages  like  a 
wild  beast,  yet  recurs  to  Desdemona's  innocence,  "O  lago, 
the  pity  of  it !"  Nothing  approaches  this  scene  in  sorrow 

118 


OTHELLO 

and  wounded  confidence.  Desdemona's  doom  is  fixed. 
She  cannot  understand  her  lord's  frenzy;  it  is  a  great 
contrast  between  the  man's  cruelty  and  the  woman's  tears. 
Emilia  defends  her  mistress  to  the  raging  husband  who 
is  deaf  to  her  words.  He  doubts  all  women  now;  life 
is  gone  without  his  ideal.  He  thinks  he  has  had  oracular 
proof,  "had  it  pleased  heaven  to  try  me  with  affliction, 
steeped  me  in  poverty  to  the  very  lips ;  but,  alas,  to  make 
me  a  fixed  figure  for  the  time  of  scorn  to  point  his  slow 
unmoving  finger  at !" 

His  reason  totters  under  the  terrible  load  of  suspicion. 
He  charges  Desdemona  with  guilt.  She  is  stunned,  yet 
half  conscious  of  her  fate,  and  asks  lago,  "am  I  that 
name,  lago?"  It  is  the  cry  of  the  lamb  that  fears  the 
wolf.  She  begs  her  enemy  to  tell  her  how  to  win  her 
lord  again,  all  unsuspecting  his  devilish  villainy.  "By 
this  light  of  heaven  I  know  not  how  I  lost  him."  Nothing 
but  a  figure  of  adamant  could  have  resisted  such  tears  and 
pleadings.  When  Desdemona  robes  herself  for  the  night 
and  sings  the  Willow  Song,  we  are  reminded  of  Ophelia. 
It  is  sorrow  crowning  sorrow, — the  lament  of  the  swan. 
The  debate  between  the  hunted  innocent  and  the  calloused 
woman  of  the  world  is  the  contrast  of  purity  and  vice,  of 
snow  and  ink. 

Act  V  is  unsupportable.  Witness  the  words  of  Othello, 
—"It  is  the  cause,  the  cause  my  soul;  she  must  die  or 
she  will  betray  more  men."  Like  Hamlet,  he  cannot  kill 
an  unprepared  soul  and  she  must  pray;  he  will  not  send 
for  Cassio  to  unravel  the  mystery  of  the  handkerchief. 
Rage,  incredible  and  unrelieved,  spurs  him  on.  He 
strangles  her  and  Desdemona,  dying,  asserts  her  innocence 
and  defends  her  husband,  saying  she  did  the  deed  herself. 
This  is  the  consummation  of  saintliness  and  the  very 
wonder  of  wonders.  With  a  prayer  for  her  destroyer 

119 


SHAKESPEARE    STUDIES 

she  floats  into  the  undiscovered  country.  As  Emilia  re- 
veals to  Othello  how  he  has  been  duped,  unravelling  to 
him  all  her  husband's  fiendish  work,  he  roars  like  Lear 
himself,  "Cold,  cold  my  girl!  whip  me,  ye  devils!  blow 
me  about  in  winds,  roast  me  in  sulphur,  O  Desdemona 
dead,  Oh,  Oh,  Oh!"  After  wounding  lago,  he  would 
have  him  live,  for  "in  his  sense  'tis  happiness  to  die." 
The  serpent  refuses  to  speak,  "What  you  know  you  know, 
demand  me  nothing." 

Then  come  those  sublime  closing  words  of  the  ruined 
man:  "Speak  of  me  as  I  am,  nothing  extenuate  nor  set 
down  aught  in  malice;  then  must  you  speak  of  one  that 
loved  not  wisely  but  too  well;  of  one  whose  hand,  like 
the  base  Indian,  threw  a  pearl  away  richer  than  all  his 
tribe."  He  stabs  himself  and  falls  upon  the  bed — "I 
kissed  thee  ere  I  killed  thee,  no  way  but  this,  killing  my- 
self to  die  upon  a  kiss."  lago  is  led  forth  to  torture,  and 
the  curtain  falls. 

Othello  surpasses  all  other  tragedies  in  the  strength 
of  its  dramatic  effects,  and  is  called  the  most  thrilling 
of  the  master's  masterpieces.  The  play  is  like  the  fury 
of  the  elements ;  sympathy  alternates  with  repulsion ;  sick- 
ening fear  with  flashes  of  hope.  The  play  is  scarcely  re- 
lieved, as  Lear  and  Hamlet,  with  supernatural  powers. 
We  are  verily  "hemmed  in,  cabbined,  cribbed,  confined" ; 
the  slightest  instruments  rouse  the  action.  The  subject 
itself  is  painful. 

In  Act  IV,  we  have  chaos  itself.  Some  critics  haw 
been  horrified  by  a  black  Othello,  yet  Shakespeare  uses 
"negro"  and  "Moor"  of  the  same  person  in  the  Merchant 
of  Venice.  Lamb  thought  Desdemona  was  to  be  con- 
demned for  loving  a  black,  and  to  us  the  union  does  seem 
unnatural.  Othello  is  made  jealous  against  his  will,  while 
Leontes,  in  The  Winter's  Tale,  is  jealous  by  nature. 

120 


OTHELLO 

Never  before,  nor  since,  was  the  progress  of  suspicion 
in  a  noble  mind  so  steadily,  and  progressively,  and  actu- 
ally delineated.  The  bravery  and  credulity  of  Cassio  are 
balanced  against  the  readiness  and  cowardice  of  Roder- 
igo;  Shakespeare  has  only  to  drop  a  handkerchief  and 
the  mischief  is  done.  Lear  is  the  greatest  effort  of 
Shakespeare,  as  a  poet;  Hamlet,  as  a  meditator;  and 
Othello  is  the  combination  of  the  two. 

Macaulay  thought  this  play  the  greatest  work  in  the 
world.  It  gives  a  great  moral  lesson  for  all  time.  Hugo 
called  Othello  night,  Desdemona  dawn,  and  lago  dark- 
ness. One  can  see  the  workings  of  conscience  under' 
lago's  disguises  like  the  works  beneath  the  crystal  of  a 
watch.  Many  actors  have  sensualized  and  brutalized 
Othello.  Until  he  becomes  a  lover,  he  is  centred  in  in- 
tegrity and  calmness.  Afterward,  he  is  passion  personi- 
fied. His  devotion  had  something  of  awe  and  self-abne- 
gation. Forlorn  was  the  swarthy  warrior  in  the  hands 
of  a  mere  girl.  In  the  night  of  horror,  he  is  like  Jepthah 
discharging  an  awful  duty.  It  is  the  intellectual  calcula- 
tion in  lago  that  commands  our  admiration.  There  are 
lagos  in  council,  in  commerce,  in  banking,  in  common  life. 

Othello  dies,  yet  lives,  and  lago  lives  but  to  die.  Suf- 
fering is  less  than  incapacity  for  pain.  Like  Coleridge, 
Othello  found  death  in  life  and  life  in  death.  He  warns 
us  against  the  folly  of  a  mistaken  vow.  Like  Abraham, 
he  went  up  with  his  offering  to  the  sacrifice,  but  found 
no  substitute  in  the  thicket.  We  are  taught  the  tremend- 
ous consequences  that  hinge  on  the  most  trivial  circum- 
stances, "trifles,  light  as  air,  are  to  the  jealous  confirma- 
tion strong  as  holy  writ."  Jealousy  may  be  the  offspring 
of  love.  What  "damned  minutes  tells  he  o'er  who  dotes, 
yet  doubts;  suspects,  yet  strongly  loves!" 

121 


SHAKESPEARE    STUDIES 

When  Othello  opened  his  heart  to  the  first  suspicion, 
he  surrendered  his  peace.  A  life  of  service  for  others  is 
the  only  corrective  to  the  green-eyed  monster.  The  little 
island  of  our  own  concerns,  washed  by  the  seas  of  per- 
sonal gain  and  flowered  by  the  roses  of  family  content, 
where  so  many  of  us  dwell  in  happy  ignorance  and  selfish 
ease,  unwilling,  like  Columbus,  to  penetrate  other  waters 
and  survey  other  lands,  may  become  the  nest  of  envy  and 
hate  and  jealousy,  a  trinity  of  vipers,  that  mock  the  meat 
they  feed  upon,  unless  we  open  our  windows  to  the  light, 
give  our  talents  expansion,  dedicate  our  energies  to 
humanity,  leave  the  Jerusalem  of  pleasure  for  the  Jericho 
of  benevolence,  and  bind  up  the  wounds  of  each  suffering 
traveller  that  we  meet  on  life's  road. 

lago's  infamous  motto — "put  money  in  thy  purse"- 
we  have  adopted  as  our  rule  of  life,  and  denuded  action 
of  its  motive,  and  nature  of  her  treasures,  and  character 
of  its  sweetness.  This  great  drama  repeats  the  truth, 
elsewhere  expressed  by  Shakespeare,  that  "virtue  turns 
vice  being  misapplied,  and  vice's  by  action  sometimes 
dignified."  We  are  also  taught  that  the  whitest  bosom 
may  conceal  the  darkest  thoughts,  "who  has  a  breast  so 
pure,  but  some  uncleanly  apprehensions  keep  leets  and 
law  days  and  in  session  sit  with  meditations  lawful?" 
"A  good  name  is  better  than  riches  and  its  loss  is  the 
greatest  poverty."  Boundless  riches  is  as  poor  as  winter 
to  him  that  ever  fears  he  shall  be  poor. 

In  Macbeth,  sleep  is  murdered  that  "knits  up  the 
ravelled  sleeve  of  care."  Here  "not  poppy,  nor  mandra- 
gora,  nor  all  the  drowsy  syrups  of  the  world  can  medicine 
the  anguished  mind,  the  sweet  sleep  it  had  yesterday." 
Bacon  says  that  knowledge  is  power,  but  we  learn  that 
suspicion  makes  knowledge  a  weary  weight.  "Where 
ignorance  is  bliss  'tis  folly  to  be  wise."  How  few  there 

122 


OTHELLO 

are  in  all  the  world  who  will  speak  of  us  as  we  are,  "noth- 
ing extenuate,  nor  set  down  aught  in  malice !" 

In  Hamlet  and  in  Romeo  and  Juliet  and  in  Othello  we 
have  a  touch  of  presentiment,  of  superstitious  foreboding, 
to  which  we  all  are  responsive.  Hamlet  quivered  like  an 
aspen  when  he  was  confronted  by  his  father's  apparition, 
and  poor  Desdemona  was  frightened  at  the  loss  of  the 
magical  handkerchief,  dyed  in  liquor,  conserved  of 
maiden's  hearts.  By  the  coarsest  character  in  the  play 
all  are  taught  that  "'tis  not  a  year  or  two  shows  us  a 
man."  This  is  akin  to  Richter's  great  observation  that 
the  best  fruits,  flowers,  and  feelings,  develop  slowly. 

Burke  says  that  confidence  is  the  cheap  defence  of  men 
and  nations,  and  on  the  sands  of  sinking  confidence 
Othello's  nature  suffers  its  frightful  collapse. 

There  are  crises  when  God  seems  all  withdrawn.  No 
light  appears.  The  Fates  weave  their  web  unforbidden ; 
the  air  is  filled  with  foreboding  shapes ;  and  Providence 
seems  only  a  name.  Over  this  play  no  all-controlling 
power  is  seen ;  the  gods  sport  with  innocence  and  youth ; 
darker  and  darker  grows  the  mystery ;  evil  looms  larger ; 
the  Archfiend  stalks  unchecked ;  and  purity  goes  like  the 
Maid  of  Domremy  to  a  cruel  doom.  "Truth  forever  on 
the  scaffold,  wrong  forever  on  the  throne." 

We  can  no  more  explain  the  awful  sacrifice  than  we 
can  explain  the  decimation  of  the  chosen  people  through 
the  ages,  their  untold  desolation  and  sorrow  and  pain. 
The  great  dramatist  well  knew  that  character  passes 
through  the  fire,  and  that  innocence  must  bear  the  cross 
before  it  can  wear  the  crown.  This  is  the  lesson  of 
Cordelia  and  of  Desdemona.  In  the  whirling  wind  of 
passion,  in  the  blinding  mist  of  recklessness,  the  judgment 
is  benumbed  and  the  reason  dethroned.  Othello  has  his 
counterparts,  many  a  husband  has  since  fanned  the  flame 

123 


SHAKESPEARE    STUDIES 

of  unfounded  suspicion  until  it  became  a  devouring,  roar- 
ing conflagration,  licking  up  the  foundations  of  trust  and 
destroying  all  the  props  of  hope.  Infatuation  too  often 
ends  in  hate. 

This  immortal  play  is  a  witness  to  the  ages  that  some- 
thing more  than  admiration  for  conquest  and  travel  is 
needed  as  a  basis  for  the  marriage  tie.  Brutus  trusted 
his  wife,  for  he  knew  her.  Leontes  distrusted  his  wife, 
for  he  never  knew  her.  Intellectuality  is  in  the  air,  and 
we  are  urged  to  read  and  think  and  ponder.  Yet  lago  is 
the  ineffaceable  warning  to  our  age  of  what  the  intellect 
may  readily  become  when  unassisted,  uncontrolled  by 
the  moral  faculties.  Is  it  not  significant  that  the  most 
dastardly  villain  in  all  literature  was  a  profound  thinker, 
a  master  of  the  arts  that  are  now  deemed  most  honorable, 
the  embodiment  of  the  American  idea  that  exalts  cunning 
and  self-interest  and  personal  gain? 

Shakespeare  in  this  play  is  the  lawgiver  on  Sinai.  The 
mountain  again  quakes.  We  have  the  sixth  and  seventh 
commandments.  lago  sets  up  his  golden  calf  only  to 
drink  its  powdered  dust  brackish  with  water,  and  is  denied 
an  entrance  into  the  promised  land.  Irresolution  froze 
the  current  of  Hamlet's  purpose,  frenzied  ambition 
brought  Wolsey  to  his  fall,  and  malignant  envy  slowly 
petrified  lago's  heart.  Too  many  modern  playwrights 
make  sin  something  to  be  expunged  and  atorfed,  a  stepping 
stone  for  character,  and  a  dash  of  deviltry  seasons  the 
libretto.  Not  so  is  it  with  him  who  was  not  of  an  age 
but  for  all  time.  Wickedness  is  sin  and  sin  is  damna- 
tion ;  the  offence  is  rank  and  smells  to  heaven ;  no  guard 
shall  bar  heaven's  shafts,  dalliance  is  dangerous.  In  the 
corrupted  currents  of  this  world,  offence's  gilded  hand 
may  shove  by  justice,  but  'tis  not  so  above;  there  is  no 
shuffling,  there  the  action  lies  in  his  true  nature,  and  we 

124 


OTHELLO 

ourselves  are  compelled,  even  to  the  teeth  and  forehead  of 
oun  faults,  to  give  in  evidence.  "The  plays  of  Shakes- 
peare are  the  voice  of  history,  sounding  across  the  ages, 
the  laws  of  right  and  wrong." 


125 


THE  TEMPEST 

—  BY  — 
F.  HYATT  SMITH 


THE  TEMPEST 

OF  all  Shakespeare's  plays,  The  Tempest  is  the  most 
original  and  striking.  Written  late  in  life,  it  is  per- 
vaded by  the  supernatural  and  traverses  the  border- 
land of  the  unseen.  In  A  Midsummer  Night's  Dream,  the 
actors  wander  in  a  maze  of  error  led  by  mischievous 
frolic.  Here  both  human  and  imaginary  characters, 
both  the  dramatic  and  the  grotesque,  are  perfectly 
blended  with  the  greatest  art  without  any  semblance 
of  consciousness.  Here  he  gives  to  "airy  nothing  a 
local  habitation  and  a  name."  The  preternatural  part 
resembles  reality  and  the  real  events  resemble  a  dream. 

We  are  in  a  world  of  spirits,  airy  shapes  flit  about  us, 
singular  portents  throng  the  sky,  the  terrestrial  but 
serves  to  project  the  celestial,  the  earthly  incidents  are 
but  the  scaffolding  for  the  aerial  structure.  It  is  almost 
impossible  to  represent.  We  have  solemn  grandeur, 
unrivalled  grace,  and  grave  beauty.  While  the  passion 
and  depth  and  expression  of  other  compositions  easily 
surpass  it,  yet  as  a  work  of  art,  as  a  triumph  of  the 
imagination,  as  a  sustained  unity  and  majesty,  it  stands 
alone.  It  has  no  prototype  in  literature. 

The  action  and  progressive  movement  are  minor  in 
this  play.  The  scene  of  The  Tempest  lies  in  the  fancy. 
The  fabled  island  may  have  been  Lampedusa,  in  the 
Mediterranean,  'still  uninhabited,  (and  supposed  ,by 
sailors  to  be  enchanted.  Yet  the  island  of  the  play  sank 
beneath  the  waves  when  the  great  magician  broke  his 
staff. 

The  enchanted  isle,  the  wonderful  necromancer,  the 
beautiful  girl,  the  mysterious  sprite,  the  gross  com- 
posite of  brute  and  demon,  the  stately  king,  the  exact 

129 


SHAKESPEARE    STUDIES 

seamanship  knowledge,  and  the  rude  sailors,  are  all 
the  creations  of  that  imperial  mind  whose  empire  knew 
no  visible  bounds,  and  whose  daring-  penetrated  earth 
and  sea  and  sky.  The  Tempest  is  the  synonym  for  all 
realms  surpassing  sense  and  defying  space  and  vision. 
It  is  Shakespeare's  "Book  of  Revelation" ,  and  as  full 
of  enigmas  as  the  Apocalypse.  It  is  allied  to  St.  Au- 
gustine's "Civitas  Dei",  and  to  Bernard's  "Walls  of 
Zion"  con  jubilant  with  song. 

It  hints  a  fourth  dimension  of  space  and  a  clair- 
voyant sight.  It  inspired  Poe's  "Haunted  Palace",  and 
his  "City  by  the  Sea."  It  resembles  Plato's  "Atlantis", 
that  mythical  island  that  disappeared  in  a  convulsion 
of  nature.  It  entices,  intoxicates,  hints,  symbolizes  and 
haunts.  Milton  gives  the  dimension  of  angels,  their 
attributes,  and  their  physical  qualities.  Shakespeare 
lays  open  the  world  of  spirits,  he  surpasses  Coleridge 
in  the  supernatural,  he  distances  Shelley  in  his  ethereal 
visions,  and  he  achieves  in  a  phrase  what  the  blind 
Puritan  labored  to  attain  in  a  page.  Puck  girdled  the 
earth,  but  Prospero  waves  his  wand  and  the  invisible 
appears. 

Once  a  ruling  prince,  thirsting  for  knowledge, 
devoted  to  the  liberal  arts,  he  forgot  that  the  world 
is  hostile,  and  thus  his  brother  deposed  him  from  his 
dukedom.  He  saved  himself  and  his  lovely  daughter 
and  some  of  his  books  of  magic  upon  a  desert  island. 
Here  his  knowledge  expands.  Nature  listens  to  him 
and  obeys  him,  zephyr-like  spirits  full  of  humor  are 
compelled  to  serve  him,  songs  issue  from  nowhere  and 
ravish  the  ear,  Ariel  does  his  bidding,  Caliban  struggles 
and  repines,  a  thing  of  earth  earthy,  Miranda  is  virgin 
simplicity  and  confidence  and  truth.  Prospero  is 
Shakespeare  himself  in  his  calm  temper,  in  his  self- 

130 


THE    TEMPEST 

mastery  and  gravity,  in  his  sensitiveness  to  wrong  and 
his  unfaltering  justice,  and  in  his  remoteness  from  the 
joys  and  sorrows  of  the  world. 

His  occasional  intellectual  impatience,  his  flashes  of 
irritability,  his  memory  of  his  injury,  throw  into  greater 
relief  that  altitude  of  thought  from  which  he  surveys 
the  whole  field  of  human  life,  and  ponders  on  its  small- 
ness  apd  its  greatness.  Paracelsus  attains.  He  shares 
the  joy  of  his  children  to  whom  he  is  half-god  and  half- 
father.  In  a  dream  existence  he  will  still  face  each 
duty  with  a  smile.  He  is  very  wise  and  conducts  his 
intercourse  equally  well  with  friend  and  foe. 

He  is  Shakespeare's  nearest  approach  to  deity.  He 
and  his  daughter  came  ashore  by  Providence  divine. 
When  he  breaks  his  staff  and  buries  his  book  at  the 
end,  we  feel  that  we  are  again  returned  to  earth  and 
the  great  vision  fades.  He  can  throw  over  whom  he 
will  a  magic  sleep,  and  then  he  can  awaken  his  subjects 
like  a  hypnotist.  He  introduces  us  to  the  kingdom  of 
mind.  He  hints  thought  transference  and  mental  sug- 
gestion and  realms  unreached  by  wires  and  messages 
from  unseen  heights.  Prospero  is  man,  liberated  from 
the  bondage  of  the  present,  roused  to  a  conviction  of 
his  supernal  powers,  disdaining  all  that  can  be  bought 
or  sold,  responsive  to  far-off  forces,  and  akin  to  distant 
beings.  He  tells  us  that  there  are  supersensible 
spheres,  spiritual  energies,  planets  beyond  and  outrank- 
ing our  little  ball. 

By  the  discipline  of  trial  and  the  loss  of  rightful 
possessions,  Prospero  attains  a  kingdom  which  shall 
endure.  Deprived  of  gold  and  land  he  inherits  him- 
self. He  dies  unto  the  present,  and  reigns  over  the 
future.  He  is  the  symbol  of  the  intellectual  man  who 
makes  his  own  surroundings.  His  library  is  a  dukedom 

•    131 


SHAKESPEARE     STUDIES 

large  enough.  He  echoes  Richter's  great  observation 
that  whatever  the  mind  of  man  may  conceive,  the  will 
of  man  may  achieve.  He  emphasizes  the  old  truth  that 
sacrifice  is  the  pathway  to  success. 

Prospero  is  the  great  prophet  of  Shakespeare,  clad 
in  his  robe  of  magic,  a  sort  of  Elisha  with  his  staff, 
and  when  he  lays  this  upon  the  dead  they  come  to 
life.  His  simple  island  fare  is  far  sweeter  than  all  the 
rich  dishes  that  he  once  enjoyed.  No  music  is  so  rare 
as  the  winds  that  play  about  the  isle,  and  the  mys- 
terious sounds  that  issue  unexpectedly  from  caverns 
and  sea.  Thoreau  in  his  hut  was  a  Prospero  who 
found  enchantment  in  the  pines  and  heard  oratorios 
among  the  birds.  Power  is  proved  by  Prospero  to  be 
in  exact  ratio  to  solitude.  Bunyan  was  the  Prospero 
of  the  I7th  century,  immured  in  a  narrow  dungeon, 
yet  seeing  the  Wicket  Gate  and  the  House  Beautiful 
and  the  towers  of  jasper  and  beryl.  "Stone  walls  do 
not  a  prison  make  nor  iron  bars  a  cage,  minds  innocent 
and  quiet  take  that  for  a  hermitage".  Out  of  the  lion 
comes  the  honey. 

Prospero  is  above  all  vengeance,  he  forgives  his 
brother^  he  is  harmonious  and  fully  developed  will. 
Forgiveness  and  freedom  are  the  keynotes  of  the  play. 
When,  at  the  last,  he  leaves  the  fsland  and  returns  to 
the  dukedom  he  had  lost,  he  goes  a  purified  man, — the 
bard  himself,  to  his  loved  Stratford,  matured  and 
taught  and  dignified,  to  await  the  end.  In  the  Epilogue, 
Prospero  implores  pardon.  Was  he  Shakespeare  feel- 
ing the  nearness  of  the  other  world,  sensible  of  his 
errors,  and  eager  to  be  forgiven  them  ?  Who  can  say  ? 

Miranda  is  abstract  womanhood.  She  is  modest  and 
tender,  beautiful  and  unsophisticated,  delicate  and 
refined.  She  is  the  Eve  of  an  enchanted  paradise. 

132 


THE    TEMPEST 

She  resembles  nothing  upon  earth  and  has  never  beheld 
any  of  her  sex.  She  rises  into  loveliness  from  the  rocks 
and  ferns.  Her  playmates  are  the  billows  and  clouds. 
Sprites  speak  to  her,  the  air  is  vocal  to  her  by  her 
father's  art,  she  appears  to  others  celestial.  Her  first 
tears  spring  from  compassion  at  the  shipwrecked 
sailors.  Her  first  sigh  is  one  of  love.  Her  bashfulness 
is  the  unfolding  of  a  rose. 

Like  a  child  of  nature,  she  is  struck  with  wonder  at 
her  own  emotions  when  Ferdinand,  the  noble,  seeks 
her  hand.  He  is  the  chivalrous  in  man,  laying  his  gifts 
at  the  feet  of  pure  womanhood.  Byron  degraded 
Haidee  into  a  sensual  toy,  but  Shakespeare  made 
Miranda  a  blossom  sweet  as  the  arbutus  springing  from 
the  hidden  moss.  Such  a  creature  could  only  have  had 
a  Ferdinand  for  a  lover.  Any  other  and  less  sincere  a 
man  would  have  done  violence  to  the  play.  Her  prince- 
ly father  claims  her  as  a  thread  of  his  own  life,  nay 
"that  for  which  he  lives".  She  surpasses  the  Eve  of 
Milton  for  she  is  more  natural.  Possibly  he  studied 
her  for  his  great  creation.  She  is  the  goddess  of  the 
island. 

She  is  the  ideal  teacher,  opening  the  mind  of  the 
dull  Caliban,  and  with  the  sympathetic  insight  of  girl- 
hood interpreting  his  thoughts  and  giving  them  words. 
Her  patience  with  his  ignorance,  her  vision  of  his  possi- 
bilities, her  eagerness  to  lead  him  to  the  light,  are 
almost  divine.  Born  a  daughter  of  a  Prince,  bred  on  a 
lonely  island  with  a* magician  and  a  monster  for  her 
companions,  she  remembers  her  infancy,  and  when 
Prospero  lays  down  his  mantle  and  tells  her  the  story 
of  her  removal,  she  is  all  attention  and  her  great  eyes 
dilate.  She  marvels  that  he  can  raise  or  calm  a  storm. 
He  never  permits  his  loved  daughter  to  come  too  near 

133 


SHAKESPEARE    STUDIES 

Ariel,  lest  the  effect  of  the  unearthly  sprite  may  over- 
come her.  He  waves  his  staff  and  there  ensues  the 
charming  attachment  between  Ferdinand  and  the 
lovely  girl. 

Ariel  is  wondrous.  He  revolves  about  Prospero  like 
his  stellar  namesake  about  Uranus ;  and  whenever  he 
would  stray  from  his  orbit  the  Master  brings  him  back. 
He  is  not  an  angel  above  man,  nor  a  fiend  below  man. 
He  is  a  being  with  all  the  faculties  of  reason,  yet  im- 
mortal. Did  Shakespeare  mean  him  to  typify  the  soul 
in  its  heavenly  estate?  Or  is  he  the  pure  fancy,  roam- 
ing earth  and  sky,  Shelley's  skylark,  a  joy  unembodied, 
a  blithe  spirit  ever  on  the  wing?  He  is  surely  un- 
earthly, ethereal  and  refined,  imaginary  power,  and  the 
swiftness  of  thought.  He  drinks  the  air. 

He  has  a  sense  of  goodfellowship  in  all  his  employ- 
ments. His  songs  sound  as  if  invisible.  He  is  frolic- 
some and  fairy,  agreeable  and  open,  mischievous  and 
capricious,  daring  and  roguish,  he  thanks  his  master 
for  his  release  but  his  gratitude  does  not  seem  human, 
he  must  be  ever  held  in  checlj.  He  is  promised  his 
freedom  in  two  days,  and  then  his  spirits  recover  their 
old  abandon.  The  old  angels  of  literature  weary  us 
with  their  ill-set  wings  and  their  stately  speech. 
Shakespeare  manages  this  sprite  with  consummate  tact 
and  naturalness.  Ariel  is  the  proper  attendant  for 
Miranda.  He  and  his  fellows  hover  above  her  head, 
they  minister  to  her  needs,  they  call  up  before  her 
pageants  of  great  beauty.  He  is  the  image  of  the  air, 
and  on  air  he  feeds.  He  is  the  poet's  thought,  the  poet's 
intuition,  the  poet's  insight.  He  anticipated  the  tele- 
graph and  leaps  vast  spaces. 

If  man  shall  ever  conquer  the  air  and  ride  in  aerial 
ships,  looking  down  on  continents  and  cities,  then  he 

134 


THE    TEMPEST 

will  share  Ariel's  powers  and  survey  Ariel's  domain. 
He  comes  and  goes;  a  spirit  in  the  grasp  of  a  mighty 
enchanter.  He  feels  his  bondage.  Unlike  Goethe's 
Faust,  his  energies  are  always  employed  for  good.  He 
can  fly,  swim,  and  dive  into  the  fire.  He  boards  a 
ship,  dives  into  the  cabin,  rushes  to  the  topmast,  fol- 
lows Jove's  lightnings,  makes  old  Neptune  tremble, 
causes  a  fearful  storm,  and  the  sailors  cry:  "Hell  is 
empty  and  all  the  devils  are  here!"  Yet  not  a  hair 
perishes.  He  disperses  the  voyagers  about  the  isle. 
He  can  cool  the  air.  He  leaves  all  asleep.  Prospero 
has  freed  him  from  torment  and  he  is  eager  for  new 
fields  to  conquer.  Sometimes  he  appears  as  a  water 
nymph. 

What  wonderful  songs  are  his;  "Full  fathom  five  thy 
father  lies,  Qf  his  bones  are  coral  made,  Those  are 
pearls  that  were  his  eyes,  Nothing  of  him  that  doth 
fade,  But  doth  suffer  a  sea  change,  Into  something  rich 
and  strange".  The  last  three  lines  are  appropriately 
cut  on  Shelley's  tomb.  Prospero  calls  him  his  indus- 
trious servant.  He  summons  the  peasants  and  Iris  and 
Ceres  to  the  nuptials  of  Miranda  and  Ferdinand.  When 
urged  by  his  master  he  says,  "I  go,  I  go".  He  confines 
the  king  and  his  followers  distracted  and  dismayed ;  he 
makes  tears  run  down  their  beards  like  winter's  drops. 
Indeed  he  would  pity  them  were  he  human.  Immedi- 
ately Prospero  orders  their  release.  They  must  again 
be  themselves.  Ariel  fetches  them.  He  sings:  "Where 
the  bee  sucks,  there  suck  I,  in  a  cowslip's  bell  I  lie, 
there  I  couch  when  owls  do  cry,  on  the  bat's  back  I  do 
fly,  after  summer  merrily.  Merrily,  merrily  shall  I 
live  now,  under  the  blossom  that  hangs  on  the  bough." 

Now  he  awakens  the  shipmaster  and  boatswain 
under  the  hatches  of  the  ship;  he  goes  and  returns  be- 

i35 


SHAKESPEARE    STUDIES 

fore  twice  the  pulses  beat ;  he  stands  invisibly  by  when 
the  seamen  say  they  were  in  a  dream,  and  he  asks  his 
master — "was  it  well  done?"  This  is  our  last  view  of 
the  singular  sprite  until  Prospero  delivers  all  and  says, 
"My  Ariel,  chick,  to  trie  elements  be  free  and  fare 
thou  well !"  From  the  air  he  came  and  to  the  air  he 
returned.  He  is  the  most  fascinating  and  unworldly 
and  blithesome  creature  in  all  literature. 

Precisely  opposed  to  Ariel  is  Caliban.  The  one  is  a 
Mayblossom  suspended  in  the  azure ;  the  other  is  half 
man  and  half  brute,  condensed  and  gross  in  feeling, 
he  has  the  dawnings  of  understanding  without  reason 
or  the  moral  sense,  he  shows  the  approach  of  the 
brutes  to  the  mental  powers  of  man.  He  is  malicious 
and  cowardly  and  false;  yet  different  from  Shakes- 
peare's merely  vulgar  knaves.  He  is  rude  but  not  vul- 
gar; he  always  speaks  in  verse.  He  has  a  vocabulary 
of  his  own. 

Caliban  is  one  of  the  dramatist's  masterpieces.  He 
has  attracted  attention  from  the  first  thinkers  of  every 
age.  He  is  wild,  deformed,  irregular,  neither  man  nor 
brute,  the  essence  of  grossness  without  vulgarity.  He 
comes  from  the  dark  soil,  of  the  earth  earthy, — the  isle 
with  its  haunting  noises  he  hears  with  delight :  "sounds 
and  sweet  airs  that  give  delight  and  hurt  not;  some- 
times a  thousand  twanging  instruments  will  hum  about 
mine  ears  and  sometimes  voices".  Here  is  a  savage 
with  a  child's  simplicity.  What  a  curious  mixture  of 
devil  and  man  and  beast!  Evil  he  desires  for  its 
piquancy.  He  thinks  gross  injustice  has  been  done  him 
and  believes  himself  a  slave. 

The  idea  of  murder  gives  him  delight,  for  he 
imagines  that  it  would  make  a  great  noise  and  com- 
motion. He  is  laughably  horrible,  a  specimen  to  be 

136 


THE    TEMPEST 

examined  more  than  a  creature  to  be  execrated;  at 
times  he  shows  great  prudence,  and  again  he  roars  with 
hate.  Yet  Shakespeare  grants  him  some  instincts  of 
goodness,  we  meet  him  when  full  grown  and  a  victim  of 
heredity.  Miranda  taught  him,  and  Prospero  stroked 
him  when  young.  He  is  a  land-fish,  a  dullard,  service 
to  him  is  slavery;  his  fins  are  like  arms,  some  have 
thought  him  the  missing  link  between  man  and  brute. 

He  seems  the  understanding  in  prison ;  awaiting  the 
light.  He  represents  the  grosser  passions  and  appe- 
tites. 

He  is  the  natural  man,  uneducated  and  untrained, 
the  creature  in  the  rough,  the  material  for  evolution, 
allied  to  the  ape,  and  ages  will  be  required  to  lift  him 
to  his  proper  height.  Prospero  sends  pains  on  him,  and 
cramps,  and  side-stitches.  He  has  memory,  for  he 
recalls  how  he  was  taught  to  name  the  bigger  light, 
and  how  the  less ;  he  knew  all  the  springs  and  brine-pits 
of  the  mystic  isle.  Language  was  taught  him  but  he 
uses  it  only  to  curse.  He  is  amazed  at  the  shapes 
he  sees ;  for  every  trifle  they  are  set  on  him ;  they 
chatter  at  him  and  bite  him ;  adders  wound  him  as  he 
treads. 

When  Stephano  sings,  "The  master,  the  swabber,  the 
boatswain  and  I,  the  gunner  and  his  mate,  loved  Mall, 
Meg,  and  Marian  and  Margery,  but  none  of  us  cared 
for  Kate ;  for  she  had  a  tongue  with  a  tang,  would  cry 
to  a  sailor  'go  hang !'  then  to  sea,  boys,  and  let  her  go 
hang!"  (Is  this  Kipling's  model?)  Caliban  feels  him- 
self tormented  and  cries  aloud.  He  thinks  Trinculo  his 
god,  and  will  kiss  his  foot.  He  will  fish  for  him  and 
get  him  berries  and  wood  enough.  Man  to  him  is 
wrondrous.  He  knows  too  the  jay's  nest  and  the  clus- 
tering filberts. 

137 


SHAKESPEARE    STUDIES 

He  is  wise  enough  to  know  that  Prosperous  power 
depends  on  his  books  and  staff;  without  them  "he's  but 
a  sot  as  I  am ;  burn  all  his  books."  This  is  Shakespeare's 
tribute  to  the  immeasurable  superiority  of  the  think- 
ing man,  for  he  represents  this  product  of  soil  as 
separated  in  his  own  opinion  from  the  mighty  magician 
only  by  his  intellectual  treasures.  Is  it  not  significant? 
We  learn  that  Caliban's  mother  was  a  witch;  she 
could  control  the  moon,  make  flows  and  ebbs,  and  deal 
in  her  command  without  her  power.  A  flash  of  intelli- 
gence irradiates  his  mind  at  the  last  and  he  says,  "I'll 
be  wise  hereafter  and  seek  for  grace."  Thus  he  departs. 

As  Ariel  represents  the  ethereal  and  spiritual,  and 
Caliban  the  earthly  and  material,  so  Shakespeare,  by 
the  enormous  gap  between  them,  would  signify  by 
what  slow  and  persistent  and  patient  stages  all  educa- 
tional forces  must  proceed.  Perhaps  our  Teutonic 
ancestors  were  Calibans,  drinking  blood  from  their 
enemies'  skulls,  and  beating  tomtoms  as  they  advanced 
half-clad  into  battle.  Each  idiot  is  a  Caliban,  and 
every  son  of  Adam  in  whom  development  is  arrested. 
They  who  live  close  to  the  earth,  who  "eat  and  drink 
for  tomorrow  they  die",  are  akin  to  this  island  monster. 
May  we  not  go  farther  and  say  that  he  to  whom  the 
visible  earth  bounds  all,  who  is  anchored  more  firmly 
to  the  ground  by  each  drill  that  cuts  the  rock,  or  each 
spade  that  uncovers  the  mine,  who  magnifies  only  ter- 
restrial forces,  who  ignores,  or  denies,  the  existence  of 
anything  beyond  the  reach  of  theorems  or  tubes,  to 
whom  "a  primrose  by  the  river's  brim,  a  yellow  prim- 
rose is  to  him,  and  it  is  nothing  more",  is  a  Caliban,  not 
indeed  in  a  hideous  and  repulsive  form,  but  in  soul,  in 
aspiration,  in  mental  equipment,  in  the  loss  of  the  finer 
and  ultimate  energies  of  life? 

138 


THE    TEM  PEST 

Wherever  a  city  is  so  intent  on  present  good  and 
present  pleasure  that  it  omits  and  loses  the  uplift  of 
art  and  letters  and  music,  and  the  refinements  that 
chasten  and  elevate  and  subdue,  there  is  a  civic  Caliban, 
breathing  smoke  and  cinders  and  the  oppressive  air  of 
feverish  gain,  wallowing  in  the  mire  of  sordid  ambition, 
and  content  to  sell  its  divine  birthright  for  a  mess  of 
pottage,  Philistinism  not  Hellenism,  willing  to  obli- 
terate the  landscape,  or  pare  away  the  waterfall  or 
denude  the  forest,  "for  the  jingle  of  the  guinea  heals 
the  hurt  that  honor  feels".  "The  Lord  let  the  house 
of  a  brute  to  the  soul  of  a  man,  and  the  man  said, — 'am 
I  your  debtor?'  And  the  Lord,  'not  yet,  but  make  it  as 
clean  as  you  can — and  then  I  will  give  you  a  better'." 

There  is  a  lovely  picture  in  this  play,  where  the  noble 
Ferdinand  and  the  sweet  Miranda  sit  in  the  cave  play- 
ing chess;  Prospero  discovers  them,  he  smiles  be- 
nignantly  for  he  knows  each  move  they  make ;  a  pretty 
pair, — and  he  their  controller  and  disposer.  The  great 
Persian  sang:  "we  are  but  pieces  on  the  game  he  plays, 
upon  this  checkerboard  of  nights  and  days,  and  hither 
and  thither  moves  and  checks  and  slays,  and  one  by  one 
into  his  closet  lays".  This  is  pessimism  and  despair. 
But  Prospero  is  kindly  Providence,  he  oversees  the 
board,  each  advance  and  each  decline  is  by  his  wise 
decree,  he  rules  and  overrules  for  his  creature's  good. 
"There's  a  divinity  that  shapes  our  ends,  rough  hew 
them  how  we  will". 

The  punishment  in  this  immortal  work  is  for  disci- 
pline and  never  for  revenge.  The  sea  rages,  but  the 
sailors  are  preserved.  Ariel  can  go  just  so  far  but  no 
farther.  Over  the  whole  is  suspended  an  atmosphere  of 
benevolence.  Much  is  now  said  of  the  Fatherhood  of 
God  and  the  Brotherhood  of  Man.  But  Shakespeare 

139 


SHAKESPEARE    STUDIES 

taught  these  three  centuries  ago  in  the  magnanimous 
generosity  and  forgiveness  and  equality  of  Prospero. 

In  the  second  act  we  have  the  vices  that  debase  civili- 
zation. Antonio  and  Sebastian  are  bad  men,  and  the 
intended  assassination  of  Alonso  and  Gonzalo  is  an 
exact  counterpart  of  the  scene  between  Macbeth  and 
Lady  Macbeth,  only  pitched  in  a  lower  key.  Thus  we 
Jiave  the  crimes  of  earth  with  the  inspirations  and  aims 
of  men  at  their  best.  All  the  elements  that  compose 
our  modern  life  are  here  pictured  and  contrasted  with 
great  effect.  The  sordid  in  Caliban  with  the  unselfish 
in  Prospero ;  the  criminal  in  Antonio  with  the  angelic 
in  Miranda ;  the  poetic  in  Ariel  with  the  commonplace 
in  Stephano.  The  island  is  a  world.  An  inferior  artist 
would  have  peopled  it  with  angels  and  beings  above 
all  sin.  But  Shakespeare  was  true  to  nature  and  to 
fact.  The  mob  appears  with  its  follies  and  temper,  but 
Shakespeare  is  not  angry  with  it,  he  regards  it  as  a 
simple  phase  of  life,  he  never  promulgates  any  party 
tenets.  Out  of  all  the  divergent  forces  issues  complete 
harmony,  and  he  bids  us  never  to  despair.  He  knew, 
as  well  as  Emerson,  the  great  law  of  compensation. 
Trinculo  and  Stephano  are  good-for-nothing  drunkards. 

The  sailors  are  like  most  men  of  their  class.  They 
set  the  leading  actors  in  greater  relief.  The  plot  against 
Prospero  is  but  a  feint,  for  his  magic  robe  is  his  sure 
protection.  This  robe  is  honor  and  truth  and  justice. 
The  good  man  cannot  fall.  Over  all  is  suspended  Ariel 
with  his  paradoxical  songs  and  his  cheerful  wit,  show- 
ing the  immeasurable  power  of  good  nature  in  a  world 
of  complexity.  Society  is  conceived  of  as  an  aggrega- 
tion of  conflicting  forces  whose  ultimate  outcome  is 
regeneration.  What  a  stimulus  and  hope  for  our  age ! 

140 


THE    TEMPEST 

Gonzalo  was  a  socialist.  He  might  well  be  studied 
by  his  modern  followers,  for  he  would  have  nature 
bring  forth  of  its  own  kind ;  no  riches  nor  poverty,  nor 
contract,  succession,  magistrate;  no  occupation  nor 
sovereignty.  But  in  Prospero  he  recognizes  the  distinc- 
tions wrought  by  talent  and  genius,  the  value  of  gov- 
ernment, the  rights  and  liberties  of  the  subject,  and  the 
necessity  of  individualism. 

In  the  tumult  of  the  storm,  with  which  the  play 
opens,  the  bravery  of  the  sailors,  their  energy,  their 
daring,  the  fall  of  the  topmast  and  the  howling  of  the 
winds,  the  coarse  conversation,  and  the  cry :  "all's  lost, 
to  prayers,  to  prayers",  we  have  a  just  introduction  to 
the  sedate  basis  of  that  which  follows,  and  a  perfect 
picture  of  a  tempest.  Yet  Prospero  who  raised  the  storm 
restrains  it  so  that  no  soul  is  lost.  The  perfect  balance 
of  taste  and  feeling  in  this  play  is  unusual  with  Shakes- 
peare, and  shows  that  with  his  maturity  came  a  more 
intense  respect  for  form.  It  is  like  the  Greek  drama ;  the 
English  is  made  as  flexible  as  the  Attic. 

In  no  play  does  the  function  of  prayer  to  avert  trouble 
more  prominently  appear.  Shakespeare's  conception  of 
prayer  would  form  a  theme  of  surpassing  interest.  How 
the  sense  of  justice  is  dignified  by  the  rescue  of  Ferdi- 
nand who  proves  to  be  the  son  of  the  King  who  made  a 
league  with  Antonio !  Mercy  becomes  the  great  enchanter 
as  nobly  as  the  graceful  Portia.  When  Ferdinand  would 
draw  his  sword,  Prospero  suddenly  holds  his  arm  sus- 
pended in  space ;  the  king  is  a  marionette  in  his  power. 

There  is  the  finest  picture  in  literature  of  a  swimmer, 
beating  the  surges  under  him,  treading  the  water,  his  bold 
head  above  the  contentious  waves,  his  arms  in  lusty  stroke 
for  the  shore.  Compared  with  this  Byron  is  tawdry  and 
melodramatic.  At  Ariel's  touch  the  men  sleep,  their  eyes 

141 


SHAKESPEARE    STUDIES 

are  open  yet  a  singular  drowsiness  possesses  them.  Sud- 
denly waking  they  hear  the  sprite:  "While  you  here  do 
snoring  lie,  open-eyed  conspiracy,  his  time  doth  take ;  if 
of  life  you  keep  a  care,  shake  off  slumber  and  beware, 
Awake,  awake!"  They  leap  to  their  feet  as  if  a  cannon 
had  dinned  in  their  ears.  One  imagines  he  was  dropped 
from  the  moon. 

Ferdinand  illustrates  the  dignity  of  labor.  When  set 
to  the  removal  of  wet  logs,  he  refreshes  his  labor  by  sweet 
thoughts,  surely  "sweet  are  the  uses  of  adversity,  which 
like  the  toad  ugly  and  venomous,  wears  yet  a  precious 
jewel  in  his  head."  Prospero  watches  the  spell  of  love 
descend  on  the  gracious  king  who  calls  it  morning  when 
Miranda  walks  at  night.  She  would  wish  no  companion 
in  the  world  but  him.  Both  prattle  deliciously  under  the 
mighty  necromancer's  power.  She  weeps  at  her  unworthi- 
ness ;  he  loves  and  prizes  and  honors  her  beyond  all  limit 
in  the  world.  She  does  not  shrink  from  the  great  declara- 
tion, for  she  is  untaught  nature  and  says :  "I  am  your  wife 
if  you  will  marry  me".  And  the  happy  father  is  rejoiced 
beyond  measure,  and  returns  to  his  solitary  vigils  amid 
his  magical  tools.  Would  that  all  infatuations  might  be 
thus  guided! 

What  a  picture  is  that  in  Act  III.  Where  strange  shapes 
bring  in  a  banquet  (the  sailors  think  them  unicorns) 
leave  the  viands,  and  depart  at  Prospero's  bidding.  It  is  a 
supernatural  feast.  Ariel  claps  his  wings  upon  the  table 
and  the  food  vanishes  to  the  consternation  of  all.  Then 
he  plainly  tells  them  that  they  are  mad,  and  that  he  made 
them  thus,  their  plot  against  Prospero  is  revealed,  they 
hear  it  in  the  winds  and  thunder  and  billows :  here  is  the 
Nemesis  and  certainty  of  detection  of  all  crime.  It  is  not 
the  Nemesis  of  Macbeth  walking  the  earth  with  leaden 
tread  and  avenging  form ;  it  is  the  remorse  of  conviction, 
for  judgment  belongs  to  Prospero  alone. 

142 


THE    TEMPEST 

No  gaudy  gifts  and  no  servile  offerings  are  brought  to 
the  nuptials  of  the  happy  pair.  But  the  treasures  of 
Ceres,  the  goddess  of  plenty,  wheat,  rye,  barley,  vetches, 
oats  and  peas, — all  nature  contributes  of  her  store,  honey- 
drops,  refreshing  showers,  even  the  peacocks  come  with 
their  gorgeous  tails  and  feathers  to  the  ceremony.  Then 
the  loveliest  song  that  nuptials  ever  heard  save  Spenser's, 
"Honor,  riches,  marriage  blessing,  long-continuous  and 
increasing;  hourly  joys  be  still  upon  you,  Juno  sings  her 
blessings  on  you ;  spring  comes  to  you  at  the  farthest,  in 
the  very  end  of  harvest ;  scarcity  and  want  shall  shun  you, 
Ceres  blessing  so  is  on  you!" 

As  the  singular  celestial  visitors  depart  Prospero  says : 
"These  our  actors  as  I  foretold  you  were  all  spirits  and 
are  melted  into  air,  thin  air;  and  like  the  baseless  fabric 
of  this  vision,  the  cloud-capped  towers,  the  gorgeous 
palaces,  the  solemn  temples,  the  great  globe  itself,  yea  all 
which  it  inherit,  shall  dissolve,  and  like  this  insubstantial 
pageant  faded,  leave  not  a  rack  behind.  We  are  such 
stuff  as  dreams  are  made  on,  and  our  little  life  is  rounded 
with  a  sleep."  Coleridge  thought  these  lines  the  most 
majestic  in  all  literature.  Alone  they  prove  Shakespeare's 
title  as  the  first  thinker  of  all  time. 

Now  dogs  throng  the  sky,  hunters  above  the  clouds 
appear,  and  Caliban  and  his  companions  run  for  their 
lives.  The  project  of  the  magician  prospers  and  the  end 
is  near.  His  enemies  languish  in  a  cave :  the  "rarer  action 
is  in  virtue  than  in  vengeance" ;  he  is  more  magnanimous 
than  Hamlet ;  he  will  save  and  restore  those  whom  he  has 
punished.  "Go  release  them,  Ariel,  my  charms  I'll  break, 
their  senses  I'll  restore  and  they  shall  be  themselves."  Is 
not  this  the  grand  end  of  all  penal  discipline,  and  have  we 
of  the  2oth  century  yet  learned  it  ? 

J43 


SHAKESPEARE    STUDIES 

Then  follows  the  magician's  farewell  to  his  servants 
and  to  his  art :  "Ye  elves  of  hills,  brooks,  standing  lakes, 
and  groves,  you  demi-puppets  that  by  moonshine  do  the 
green  sour  ringlets  make,  whereof  the  ewe  not  bites ;  and 
you  whose  pastime  is  to  make  midnight  mushrooms  that 
rejoice  to  hear  the  solemn  curfew ;  I  have  bedimmed  the 
noontide  sun,  called  forth  the  mutinous  winds,  and  'twixt 
the  green  sea  and  the  azured  vault  set  roaring  war;  to 
the  dread  rattling  thunder  have  I  given  fire,  and  rifted 
Jove's  stout  oak  with  his  own  bolt;  graves  at  my  com- 
mand have  waked  (their  sleepers,  opened,  and  let  them 
forth  by  my  so  potent  art.  But  this  rough  magic  I  here 
abjure:  and  when  I  have  required  some  heavenly  music, 
I'll  break  my  staff,  bury  it  certain  fathoms  in  the  earth, 
and  deeper  than  did  ever  plummet  sound,  I'll  drown  my 
book."  This  apostrophe  is  only  comparable  to  the  Lord 
speaking  in  the  Book  of  Job. 

The  miracles  have  served  their  august  purpose,  the 
enchanter  is  merged  in  the  man,  the  mount  no  longer 
quakes  with  fire.  Perhaps  this  was  Shakespeare's  fare- 
well to  the  theatre.  His  mighty  creations  were  well  nigh 
ended,  the  staff  was  broken,  the  book  was  buried,  his 
secret  he  concealed  certain  fathoms  in  the  earth,  and  none 
among  the  sons  of  men  has  yet  discovered  it.  Prospero 
unrobed  is  Joseph  revealing  himslf  to  his  erring  brothers, 
a  reconciliation  follows,  and  peace  is  restored.  What  a 
sublime  lesson,  that  even  supernatural  powers  can  have 
only  a  merciful  aim !  Like  the  Man  of  Galilee,  Prospero 
used  his  miraculous  gifts  for  humane  and  illuminating 
ends  only. 

Nature  appears  in  her  rarest  dress,  birds  sing,  flowers 
bloom,  and  with  the  harmony  of  man  nature  herself 
shares.  Never  play  had  happier  ending.  Alonso  asks 
the  gentle  maid's  forgiveness  and  she  grants  it.  Wonder- 

144 


THE    TEMPEST 

f ul  isle  on  which  all  the  actors  find  themselves !  Ariel  has 
repaired  the  broken  ship,  while  the  sailors  slept  all  was 
changed,  new  masts  and  rigging  waited  their  astonished 
eyes,  the  restoration  of  the  shattered  vessel  was  Ariel's 
last  achievement,  and  worthy  of  his  powers.  Caliban  is 
freed,  and  his  spell  untied.  Into  his  cell  the  hospitable 
Prospero  invites  all  for  one  night.  He  feeds  his  former 
enemies,  he  tells  the  story  of  his  life  and  they  listen  like 
Desdemona  and  her  aged  father,  we  can  almost  see  them 
before  the  fire  as  the  shadows  illumine  their  bronzed 
features,  it  is  a  marvellous  experience.  Ariel  wings  his 
way  to  the  realm  from  which  he  came,  and  Prospero 
returns  to  Milan  where  every  third  thought  of  his  shall 
be  his  grave. 

The  deeper  we  mine  in  this  play  the  richer  is  the  ore. 
It  is  as  replete  with  truth  as  Golconda  with  gems.  No 
critic  has  ever  sounded  its  shore  for  no  plummet  is  of 
sufficient  length.  It  embraces  the  world  that  now  is  and 
that  which  is  to  come.  We,  like  the  denizens  of  the 
enchanted  island,  are  the  victims  of  delusions,  we  are 
dominated  by  the  cloud-capped  towers  and  the  gorgeous 
palaces,  slaves  to  time  and  sense,  cowards  when  no  real 
danger  is  nigh,  we  are  frightened  by  each  seeming  calami- 
ty, only  a  Prospero  can  read  the  riddle,  and  only  a  mind 
based  on  Providence  is  assured  of  sanity,  proportion  and 
peace.  In  each  Caliban  of  the  streets  we  should  seek  a 
rough  diamond,  for  the  vilest  conceals  some  redeeming 
grace.  "There  dwells  some  soul  of  goodness  in  things 
evil."  The  ideal  father  is  here  portrayed,  who  so  subtly 
weaves  the  web  of  confidence  and  affection  about  his 
children,  that  all  his  words  are  heeded.  Ferdinand  was 
richer  in  the  cave  than  on  this  throne.  He  could  sing  with 
old  Dyer :  "My  mind  to  me  a  kingdom  is",  and  defy  storm 
and  want.  Cooped  in  our  conventional  huts,  Ariel  invites 

145 


SHAKESPEARE    STUDIES 

us  forth  into  the  liberal  and  embracing  air,  to  gather  the 
sweets  of  intellectual  delight,  and  to  roam  fields  as  yet 
untrodden.  The  supreme  intellectual  faculty  is  the  imagi- 
nation, and  it  is  almost  bankrupt  in  an  age  that  sees  no 
higher  than  a  building  of  stone,  that  drowns  the  song  of 
the  thrush  with  the  scream  of  the  train,  and  that  haunts 
"the  market  place,  the  eager  love  of  gain,  whose  aim  is 
vanity  and  whose  end  is  pain".  We  need  to  have  "the 
love  of  learning,  the  sequestered  nooks,  and  all  the  sweet 
serenity  of  books."  Beyond  all,  stretches  and  allures  the 
vast  domain  of  mind,  the  unconquered  realm  that  awaits 
the  present  century. 

Man  has  brought  fire  from  the  clouds;  he  paints  his 
pictures  with  the  sunbeams ;  he  unrolls  the  rocks ;  and  he 
pushes  his  trains  with  vapor;  while  harmless  lightnings 
illuminate  his  towns.  Even  the  planet  seems  subjugated 
to  him  while  it  bears  him  in  silence  and  smoothness  along 
the  vast  aerial  spaces.  Master  of  terrestrial  forces,  he 
swells  with  pardonable  pride;  inventions  multiply,  com- 
merce spreads  her  white  sails,  unseen  wires  transmit  his 
thought  beneath  the  seas. 

But  with  all  this  mastery  has  come  a  corresponding 
doubt  of  the  overworld,  the  invisible  is  pushed  farther  off, 
and  the  attraction  of  the  physical  pulls  the  thought  from 
ethereal  heights.  We  smile  when  told  of  lands  that  tele- 
graphs cannot  reach,  and  forces  that  scales  cannot  weigh. 
Even  the  popular  philosophy  takes  but  little  cognizance 
of  the  immaterial  and  spiritual  and  immortal.  Conscious- 
ness is  considered  a  function  of  the  brain  and  conscience 
itself  is  robbed  of  its  ethical  import.  The  "thrones,  domi- 
nations, princedoms"  of  Milton,  the  burning  marie  and  the 
crystalline  sky  and  the  sapphire  pavilion,  streaming  with 
august  splendor,  seem  to  many  as  idle  tales  to  charm  a 
child  to  sleep.  Dante's  snowy  rose  of  saintly  multitudes, 

146 


THE    TEM  PEST 

with  faces  of  flame  and  wings  of  gold,  ever  ascending, 
perishes  beneath  the  relentless  gaze  of  the  critic.  The 
iridescent  lights  of  the  Iliad,  and  all  the  glory  of  armor 
and  helmet  and  shield,  with  its  undertone  of  aspiration  and 
suspense,  appeal  only  to  the  eager  scholar,  and  are  mean- 
ingless to  the  average  man.  The  transcendent  mood  of 
the  spirit,  when  at  the  close  of  day  every  grass  blade  is 
oracular,  and  the  orange  and  crimson  heavens  suggest 
Him  "whose  dwelling  is  the  light  of  setting  suns",  when 
the  liberated  soul  is  no  longer  fretted  with  wasting  cares 
and  easily  mounts  to  celestial  heights,  this  and  this  only 
is  the  source  of  all  that  is  highest  in  thought  and  endeavor 
and  hope. 

Without  this,  poetry  is  commonplace;  art  is  no  longer 
transfigured;  and  buildings  are  no  longer  sermons  in 
stone.  The  consciousness  of  immortality  has  ever  been 
the  vital  and  quickening  impulse  of  all  lordly  effort.  Thus 
Angelo  hung  the  Pantheon  in  air ;  thus  Correggio  painted 
his  Holy  Night;  thus  the  Crusaders  sought  to  rescue  the 
Saviour's  tomb  from  the  Saracen;  thus  the  Hollanders 
defied  the  Spaniard  and  the  sea. 

A  conviction  of  the  supernatural  is  the  supreme  lesson 
of  The  Tempest.  Without  it,  life  would  lose  its  sacred 
charm.  Without  it,  eloquence  falls  to  the  level  of  vapid 
disquisition.  Without  it,  society  loses  its  aspirations  and 
is  drowned  in  animalism  which  exactly  keeps  pace  with 
its  wealth.  As  Wordsworth  puts  it : 

"The  world  is  too  much  with  us ;  late  and  soon, 

Getting  and  spending,  we  lay  waste  our  powers : 

Little  we  see  in  nature  that  is  ours ; 

We  have  given  our  hearts  away,  a  sordid  boon ! 

The  Sea  that  bares  her  bosom  to  the  moon ; 

The  winds  that  will  be  howling  at  all  hours, 

And  are  up-gathered  now  like  sleeping  flowers ; 


SHAKESPEARE     STUDIES 

For  this,  for  everything  we  are  out  of  tune ; 

It  moves  us  not, — Great  God!    I'd  rather  be 

A  Pagan  suckled  in  a  creed  outworn ; 

So  might  I,  standing  on  this  pleasant  lea, 

Have  glimpses  that  would  make  me  less  forlorn ; 

Have  sight  of  Proteus  rising  from  the  sea ; 

Or  hear  old  Triton  blow  his  wreathed  horn." 


148 


"THESE  OUR  ACTORS 

-  BY  — 
F.  HYATT  SMITH 


"THESE  OUR  ACTORS" 

TEMPEST  Act  IV,  Scene  I 

Slowly  the  great  procession  passes.  Hamlet,  with  his 
."bourne  from  which  no  traveler  returns",  musing  on  the 
destiny  of  life ;  Portia,  with  gravity  and  womanly  sweet- 
ness, teaching  the  ever  new  lesson  of  human  mercy ;  Mac- 
beth, with  empty  hand  and  leaden  heart,  lamenting  he 
hath  murdered  sleep;  Lady  Macbeth,  the  guilty  enchan- 
tress, from  whose  slender  palm  the  fated  stains  will  not 
out;  Lear,  storm-swept  and  deserted,  with  his  faithful 
fool,  and  his  mind  darkened  by  madness,  crying  "I  am  a 
man  more  sinned  against  than  sinning";  lago,  incarnate 
evil,  masterpiece  of  villainy,  whose  life  motto  is  Ameri- 
can :  "Put  money  in  thy  purse" ;  Desdemona,  a  creature  of 
stainless  purity,  laid  on  the  altar  of  unfounded  suspicion ; 
Ophelia,  that  fragile  shell  on  Shakespeare's  endless  shore ; 
Rosalind,  with  her  silvery  laugh  and  honest  heart;  Fal- 
staff,  coming  from  the  tavern,  rubicond  and  rolling; 
Helena,  the  combination  of  intellect  and  will  in  perfect 
harmony ;  Juliet,  at  the  window,  fairer  than  the  nightin- 
gale, and  drinking  the  fatal  draught  at  last  in  the  stately 
tomb ;  the  Witches,  dancing  in  weird  and  fantastic  move- 
ment, and  singing  "When  shall  we  three  meet  again,  in 
thunder,  lightning  or  in  rain?";  Brutus,  a  great  man  in 
ruins,  dying  at  the  climax,  like  Judas,  by  his  own  hand ; 
Caesar,  bestriding  the  narrow  world  like  a  Colossus,  "the 
foremost  man  of  all  the  earth",  singularly  resembling 
the  Son  of  Man  in  his  betrayal  by  those  He  loved,  and  in 
his  supposed  ascension  and  subsequent  rule  of  Rome 
from  the  land  of  the  immortal  gods;  Timon,  with  his 
awful  indictment  of  the  yellow  metal  that  poisons  all  our 
modern  life;  Wolsey,  falling  like  a  bright  exhalation  in 
the  evening,  and  crying  to  the  ages,  "Fling  away  ambi- 


tion" ;  Richard  the  Third,  abhorred  of  man,  and  deserted 
of  God,  appalled  at  the  ghost  in  the  tent ;  Friar  Laurence, 
learning  from  the  rind  of  a  flower  the  whole  divine  dis- 
pensation of  grace;  Richard  the  Second,  whose  Pilates 
cannot  wash  away  their  sins ;  Hermione,  the  combination 
of  dignity  without  pride,  love  without  passion,  and  tender- 
ness without  weakness;  Autolycus,  with  his  wisdom  con- 
cealed in  doggerel;  Viola,  the  embodiment  of  love  and 
youth  in  every  shifting  color;  Cordelia,  faithful  and  true, 
pillowing  her  aged  father's  head  on  the  only  heart  that 
ever  throbbed  for  him;  Imogen,  with  her  sword  in  the 
cavern's  mouth;  Horatio,  the  model  friend  in  disaster; 
Mercutio,  with  his  raillery;  Bassanio,  before  the  three 
caskets,  making  a  wise  decision;  Polonius,  with  those 
lines  of  worldly  advice  that  compass  all  of  life;  and  the 
Fools  concealing  beneath  their  silly  badinage,  golden 
nuggets  of  philosophy  and  truth. 


152 


A  TRIBUTE 

—  BY  — 
F.  HYATT  SMITH 


SHAKESPEARE 

A  Tribute  by  * 
F.  HYATT  SMITH 

OlHAKESPEARE  is  the  riddle  of  literature,  the 
j^  miracle  of  mind.  His  ancestors  were  yeomen, 
his  handwriting  would  disgrace  any  school  boy, 
he  belonged  to  no  church  and  no  party,  took  no 
apparent  interest  in  his  works,  mingled  with  the  irregu- 
lar characters  of  London,  and  when  life  waned,  he 
retired  to  Stratford,  among  the  tavern-keepers  and 
rustics  of  the  town.  Without  education  he  educates 
the  world,  untraveled  he  traverses  the  universe,  unread 
he  is  read  in  every  land,  untrained  he  trains  all  men. 
Three  million  copies  of  his  works  are  sold  each  year, 
hence  he  would  have  been  the  greatest  wealth  producer 
in  history  had  he  had  a  complete  royalty  on  his  immor- 
tal plays.  He  portrays  every  human  passion,  longing, 
art,  profession,  industry,  court  and  camp,  mart  and 
belief,  sounds  the  sea  and  conquers  the  air,  all  customs 
and  myths  and  habits  and  faculties,  the  lives  of  kings 
and  peasants  and  philosophers  and  mechanics  and 
senators  and  sorcerers  and  politicians  and  priests. 
Hamlet  is  the  tragedy  of  the  will,  Othello  is  the 
tragedy  of  jealousy,  Lear  is  the  tragedy  of  ingratitude, 
Macbeth  is  the  tragedy  of  remorse,  Julius  Caesar  is 
the  tragedy  of  politics,  Romeo  and  Juliet  is  the  tragedy 
of  love,  The  Tempest  is  the  colossal  picture  of  the  super- 
natural. His  works  are  the  best  English  history  and  a 
great  commentary  on  the  Bible.  Indeed,  many  words 
in  the  King  James  Version  are  from  him.  He  can  only 
be  compared  with  himself,  "the  man  not  of  an  age,  but 
for  all  time."  His  sweep  and  range  and  imagery  and 

*  Note  on  page  156  1 


pathos  and  beauty  are  simply  Shakespearean.  His 
characters  do  not  resemble  life,  they  are  life  itself.  He 
holds  the  mirror  up  to  nature  and  echoes  all  the  aspira- 
tions of  the  soul.  He  himself  is  Prospero  in  The 
Tempest,  who  broke  his  staff  and  buried  his  magic 
book,  crying:  "They  are  melted  into  air,  thin  air; 
and  like  the  baseless  fabric  of  this  vision,  the  cloud- 
capped  towers,  the  gorgeous  palaces,  the  solemn  tem- 
ples, the  great  globe  itself,  yea,  all  which  it  inherit, 
shall  dissolve,  and  like  this  insubstantial  pageant 
faded,  leave  not  a  rack  behind.  We  are  such  stuff  as 
dreams  are  made  on,  and  our  little  life  is  rounded  with 
a  sleep/' 


Presented  by  the  Author 

To  MR.  WM.  BENNETT 

Stratford,  England 


156 


THE  HAMMOND  PRESS,  BUFFALO,  H.  Y. 


14  DAY  USE 

RETURN  TO  DESK  FROM  WHICH  BORROWED 


LOAN  DEPT. 

This  book  is  due  on  the  last  date  stamped  below,  or 
on  the  date  to  which  renewed. 
Renewed  books  are  subject  to  immediate  recall. 

lBD*6<Sa 

f?cc'D  LD 

nrc  A  *64  -12  .M  A 

f* 

<e» 

RECEIVED 

FFB    ft  f?fl  *10  A 

VI 

V      r  W 
k**4*f$    P^jp^pTr, 

k 

LD  21A-40m-ll,'63 
(E1602slO)476B 


General  Library 

University  of  California 

Berkeley 


fd   i 143 


3  AM 


UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA  LIBRARY 


*  ?   >   *   '  t   :   ^    r  1 4  *  *  4  3  ^^IH^^H 


